


Catalyst

by GrenadeFestival



Category: Marble Hornets
Genre: Angst, Corrupt Police Officers, Eventual Fluff, F/M, Hoody/Masky origin story, Hospitalization, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Missing Scene, More tags to be added, Pre-Canon, Pre-Series, totheark!Seth
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-18
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2018-05-14 18:03:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 53,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5753023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrenadeFestival/pseuds/GrenadeFestival
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Alex crosses the line from rude director to attempted murderer, Tim and Brian know they have to do something about it. An exploration of the three years between the end of work on Alex's film and the creation of the Marble Hornets YouTube channel.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Black Water

**Author's Note:**

> Ever since I watched Night Mind's "Marble Hornets Explained" videos, I couldn't stop thinking about all the theories he threw around about Season 1. It got me thinking about the possibility of Seth being totheark, as well as Brian's transformation into Hoodie and his partnership with Tim. It made me really want to know what happened during the three years after Jay received the tapes but before he actually started watching them, so that's pretty much what this is going to be about. The current End Game is to get to the beginning of Season 1 and end it there. I've got the first five chapters written and I'll release one of those every week to stretch it out a bit so I have more time to keep writing while still delivering content. After that who knows what'll happen. Comments are appreciated since the last time I published fanfic it was on FF.net back in 2012. Enjoy!

The smell of ozone is thick in the air, and the heavy breezes that rustle the leaves and pieces of trash on the ground bring with them the promise of rain. The air is warm despite the darkness of night that has descended upon the hospital. The ground underneath him is gritty and uneven, and Brian can taste dust in his mouth. Small stones are digging into his back, but that isn’t even the worst of his discomfort. As he slowly sits up, it’s hard to find a part of his body that  _ doesn’t  _ ache. He sucks in a hoarse breath, the thick, dry air grating against his already sore throat. A soft, airy cough escapes him and he tries to breath the dust out of his lungs with little success. 

_ Where am I? _

He stands slowly, propping himself up against a wall until his shaking legs feel steady enough to use. His limbs feel like concrete blocks, and he reminds himself of a newborn horse trying to stand for the first time as he gropes along the wall. He hears stones skitter across the concrete floor when his feet hit them, but he can’t see where he’s going. He see vague, shadowy outlines of some of the debris on the ground, but beyond that he’s walking blind. 

His hands pass through open air and he realizes that he’s found the door. Without warning the hallway is filled with harsh, white light. Brian startles backwards as thunder crashes overhead. He gets a brief glimpse of the hall outside, bare, decaying, and decrepit looking. He should know where he is. He  _ knows  _ this place. He was just here with…

“Alex,” he breathes. 

His heart begins to pound. Alex. Where is Alex? He walks forward into the hall, looking back and forth in the darkness, wishing desperately for something to light his way. He picks a random direction and starts walking. Then he starts running. 

His heart is pounding, straining against his ribs, and cold sweat sticks to his back. He has no reason to believe that anything out here might hurt him, but there’s something nagging at the back of his mind, whispering to him that something is terribly wrong. It’s as if his body knows something his mind doesn’t. It’s evident in the way his lungs burn and his legs scramble around corners towards an exit he can’t remember. He doesn’t know where he’s going, but he knows he needs to get out. 

He stops when the echoes of the wind in the rooms around him change. The breeze hits him harder now and the air feels energized around him. He hears the rustling of leaves as the wind tears at the trees. He’s outside now. He takes a few steps forward but still hears the crunch of stones and glass against cement.

_ I’m in the courtyard.  _

The thought seems to come out of nowhere. The courtyard? Wait...yes, there  _ is  _ a courtyard in this place. This was where they were when Alex…

_ I was here with Alex. We were shooting some things for Marble Hornets, and then… _

He doesn’t know. There’s a great, big black hole in his mind where the memory of what happened should be, and no matter how hard he tries to recall the missing piece, he turns up nothing. He hears the slamming of footsteps against the ground. Someone shouts, and a solid mass crashes into him. Pain shoots through his palms and elbows as he tries to catch himself against the ground. He tries to flip himself over and lashes out at his attacker. The pressure on his back vanishes and he hears someone coughing next to him in the darkness, a deep hoarse sound that he realizes he’s heard many times before. 

“Tim?!” Brian says, pushing himself up onto his hands and knees. 

Between coughs he hears Tim choke out his name. There’s another flash of lightning, and for a moment the crack of thunder above them drowns out the sound of Tim’s fit. Brian catches a glimpse of where his friend is and gets to his feet. 

“Jesus, are you ok?” Brian asks, taking a step towards him. He stretches his hands out, groping around in the darkness. His hands make contact with the rough material of Tim’s jacket and he  grabs onto Tim’s arm. Tim sucks in a breath as his coughing stops. 

“Brian? What the hell are you doing out here?” he asks, straightening up.

“I could ask you the same thing. Where are we?” Brian asks, looking around. His vision was starting to adjust to the gloom, but the lightning has set him back again. He can see the dim silhouette of Tim in front of him and the outlines of some of the windows, but nothing else is comprehensible to his weakened eyes. 

“I didn’t hurt you, did I? I’m sorry, I thought you were Alex,” Tim says. 

“Alex?! Tim, why would you want to-?”

Brian stops mid-thought. The dread in his gut returns, and this time it’s accompanied by pangs of anger. Alex had something to do with this. He can  _ feel  _ it. Just the mention of his name makes him feel sick, but he doesn’t understand why. He knew something was wrong with this place the moment he and Alex arrived here, but he never considered that perhaps instead of being suspicious of the building, he should have been suspicious of Alex. He tells himself that he’s being ridiculous. Alex would never leave them behind in a place like this, surely. Still, the turmoil in his body seems to suggest otherwise.

Tim seems to sense that Brian has answered his own question because he doesn’t stop to explain. 

“Come on, we need to get out of here,” he says. He breaks away from Brian and starts walking towards another hall on the opposite side of the courtyard. Brian hurries to catch up. 

“Hey, Tim, wait! We don’t even know where we are!” he calls. 

“Look, I don’t know what just happened, but I know Alex had something to do with it, and I don’t know about you, but I’m not waiting around here for him to come back for us,” Tim says. 

“Tim, there’s no way that Alex...Look, we can’t just go wandering off into the woods. We’ll-.”

Tim doesn’t seem to be listening to Brian at all, and he keeps talking over him, fueled by his own turbulent emotions.

“You know, I always knew something was weird about him. Especially lately, but this is...this is  _ beyond  _ what I thought he was capable of.”

“Tim!”

Brian grabs onto his friend’s jacket and forces him to stop walking. 

“Tim, just slow down for a second!” he continues, “Tell me what happened. Why are you even  _ here? _ ”

“I’ll tell you everything as soon as we get out of here,” Tim says. 

“No, we are  _ not  _ wandering off into the forest in the middle of a storm. We’re already lost as it is. We don’t need to make it worse,” Brian says, “Plus, I would like to avoid getting struck by lightning.”

As if on cue, the sky unleashes another flash of lightning, and for a moment Brian can see Tim’s face clearly. He’s struck not just by how angry Tim looks, but also by how scared he is. It’s the same look he gets on his face whenever Brian knows he’s feeling trapped or overstimulated. It’s the look he gets before his instinct to fight or run gets too strong to ignore, and Brian knows he doesn’t have much time to defuse this situation. 

“Look, we’re going to be fine,” he says, “We’re together now, and whoever or whatever is out there can’t get to us tonight. No one in their right mind is going to be out in this storm. As long as we’re here, we’re in control of this situation. Right now, we’re safe here. Just breathe, ok? Let’s just stay here a little while longer and get our bearings.”

Brian can’t tell in the dark if his words have any effect on Tim, but after a moment he feels him relax just the tiniest bit. He sighs, obviously unhappy about the situation, but he’s not running either. Brian considers that a victory. 

“There are some cleaner rooms this way,” Tim finally says, “Not ideal for spending the night, but there’s probably less broken glass and rusty nails.”

“Aww, I was looking forward to my complimentary tetanus infection,” Brian says, trying to lighten the situation a little. Tim just gives a humourless laugh, as if tetanus really would be welcome in comparison to whatever might be out there lurking in the trees. Considering their situation, he’s probably not far off. 

Brian feels a cool mist against his face as it starts to rain, and the two of them go deeper into the building.

* * *

 

Brian’s face feels tight and sore when he wakes up the next morning. His joints feel even more stiff than they did last night, and he’s acutely aware of the chill of the morning seeping into his back. Only one side is even the tiniest bit warm, and that’s when he realizes his face is pressed up against Tim’s shoulder. Tim is rolled over on his back, still asleep with his hands curled close to his body. Brian groans and sits up. He tries to work the kinks out of his neck, but moving only makes him ache more. He reaches his hand up to brush the dirt out of his hair, and his fingers touch something stiff and dry matted into the hair on his temple. He scratches a bit off and looks down at the crusty red substance now lodged underneath his fingernails. How long has that been there? Was he bleeding last night and didn’t realize it? He supposed he had other things on his mind, but still. What a thing to miss.

He hears Tim shift next to him and a second later the other man stands up and stretches. Brian gets up as well. 

“Well, that was fun,” he says. 

“Yeah. Best night ever,” Tim says. He stops and looks at Brian. 

“Wow, you look awful.”

Brian grins. 

“You think I’ll get a cool scar?”

“Pfft, yeah, you’d like that, wouldn’t you? Come on, let’s get out of this shithole.”

They don’t say anything as they walk back into the halls and out into the woods. Brian thinks back to their conversation last night. He can’t fathom why Alex would bring them both out here and not tell them that the other was there, and he can’t believe that Alex brought both of them out here and then just left them for dead. Even more disturbing, he can’t believe that neither of them remember what happened after they arrived. Whatever it was, judging by the blood in his hair and the bruises on his body, it must have gotten pretty violent. But was that Alex? Or did something else happen? He realizes he doesn’t want to think about it. 

Out in the forest they start following an ill-maintained dirt road. The reflections of clouds in the puddles and cool orange light seem too tranquil for the situation at hand, but Brian can’t help but find himself admiring it. If he had a camera on him he might take a picture of the way the sun shines through the trees as it rises. It’s nice to have something pleasant to greet them after what they endured last night, and he allows himself to appreciate it, even if it’s just for a moment. 

Tim stops walking and falls behind Brian a few steps. Brian stops and looks back at him. 

“You alright?”

“Yeah, I just…” Tim trails off and takes something out of his pocket. It’s a camera. 

“Wait, isn’t that the camera Alex gave you? For the behind-the-scenes stuff?” Brian asks. 

“Yeah. I just realized I still had it.”

“You think there’s anything on it?”

“Could be. We’ll check it once we’re somewhere a bit safer.”

He puts the camera back in his pocket. Brian feels a twist of anxiety in his gut as they continue walking. He tries to tell himself that there could very well be nothing on the camera except for the videos Tim has already shot, but at the same time it could tell them what Tim was even doing out here in the first place. He said that he and Alex were location scouting, but that just doesn’t make any sense. Tim and Alex  _ were _ talking about abandoned locations for shooting, but Brian didn’t think they ever actually went anywhere. If they had, Tim certainly hadn’t said anything about it. And then there was the hospital itself. This place couldn’t be the place Tim had been talking about when he mentioned an abandoned place to film because Alex told him that he and Seth  _ found  _ it. He never mentioned Tim at all. Where  _ was  _ Seth anyway? If Alex had lied to him about finding the hospital and going out here with Tim, who was to say he hadn’t also lied about Seth being sick? 

He glances behind him at the woods as they pass the tree line. Brian can’t help but wonder if Seth is somewhere out there too. After all, if Alex could bring someone he actually liked out here and leave him for dead, Alex definitely could bring someone he merely tolerated these days out here and leave him. The thought is nauseating, but if Seth is out there he’ll have to find his own way back. Odds are in a place this big they’ll never find Seth, if he’s out there at all. 

“Did you drive up here?” Tim asks, “I came up here with Alex, so if you don’t have your car we’re kind of stranded.”

“Yeah. I came up here behind Alex and Seth. Hopefully my car hasn’t been towed,” Brian replies. 

He hopes that his hotel room is still booked so he and Tim can take a moment to get their bearings before heading home again. Finally they find themselves by a road, the first sign of real civilization that they’ve seen all day. Brian takes out his phone, wondering if he should call the police. He immediately decides against it. What would they say? They don’t even know for sure if a crime was even committed. He puts his phone back in his pocket. 

“There’s probably someone around here who can help us. The way back to my hotel is kind of far to walk,” he says. 

“I doubt anyone around here is going to give a ride to two strangers who just came out of the woods covered in blood,” Tim says. 

“I know, but maybe someone will take pity on us.”

The first place they pass looks like some kind of plant. The grounds are surrounded with a fence and tall towers rise up out of short, grimy buildings. A truck idles by the gate, waiting to be cleared and let in. The driver seems a bit startled when the two of them walk up to his truck, and it takes a moment for him to roll his window down to ask what they want. Brian realizes that neither he nor Tim have come up with a very good cover story as to why they’re filthy and out in the middle of the woods. Someone might believe that  _ one _ of them was attacked, but two people seems more unlikely. 

“What’chu boys want? Can’t you see this is private property?” the driver drawls. Brian puts on his best friendly, disarming smile.

“We’re real sorry to bother you, but we’re a bit lost. Is there a gas station near by?” he asks. 

The driver finally seems to notice the blood on Brian’s face and his expression changes from annoyance to alarm. 

“A mile or so in that direction,” he says, “But, ah...Boy, what happened to your head?”

Brian opens his mouth, trying to bullshit something off of the top of his head. He glances at Tim briefly and his friend seems to get the hint. They’re going to lose this guy if they don’t think of something believable. Tim takes a step forward, hands jammed in his pockets in obvious discomfort. 

“Um, you wouldn’t happen to know if there’s a taxi service around here, would you?” Tim asks, “We’re, uh, we’re not really from around here.”

“I gathered as much,” the truck driver says, “You boys weren’t out drinkin’ or nothing, were you?”

“No, no nothing like that,” Tim says, “It’s just…”

“Sorry, um, it’s just kind of embarrassing,” Brian says, “But last night we were actually heading to Northport, and we’d been driving all day, and there was this deer in the road...I mean, a deer ran out into the road. I know you’re not supposed to swerve, but it was late and I was tired, and…”

He gives a helpless shrug. The man nods. 

“Deer, huh? Yeah, there’s a lot of them out here. They should have signs up, but…” he sighs, “You’re lucky it wasn’t worse. Why, I know people who’ve had their windshields smashed clean through by the things. Not something you get up and walk away from to say the least. You aren’t hurt too badly, are you?”

“No, I think I just hit my head,” Brian says, “We’re fine. We just need to find a phone. Mine’s not getting any service out here.”

“I don’t know, boy, head injuries can be serious,” the man says, “I can’t drive you anywhere myself, but my supervisor inside might be willing to take you to the ER.”

“Really? Wow, thank you. Thank you so much,” Brian says. 

“Just climb up into the cab here. I’ll get’cha taken care of.”

* * *

 

It’s late afternoon by the time Brian and Tim manage to escape the ER and get a cab to Brian’s hotel. Brian hadn’t wanted to stay in the hospital at all. After all, he felt fine, and Tim had been visibly uncomfortable the entire time they were there. However, after hearing the story from the truck driver’s supervisor who had driven them out there, the nurses were very insistent on checking both Brian and Tim for concussions. Both of them were cleared relatively quickly, but getting to that point had meant a lot of sitting around in a crowded waiting room, listening to kids crying and middle-aged men griping at the nurses. The only good thing that has come out of their little ordeal is the knowledge that whatever happened to them in the forest isn’t going to kill them.

The cab drops them off in front of Brian’s hotel, which is still just as small and sketchy as Brian remembers it, but it was the only place he could afford so short notice. The walls are all painted a yellowing shade of white and the carpets have all turned brown with grim that no vacuum will ever be able to remove, but besides that it’s clean and roach free as far as he can remember. He’s just glad that tonight they’ll be able to sleep somewhere other than the floor. 

“You sure you still have the room?” Tim asks as they walk in the front door. 

“I should have it until tomorrow afternoon,” Brian says. 

They stop in front of room 114. Time seems to pause as Brian inserts the key card, and he nearly has a heart attack when it doesn’t work the first time. He sighs in relief when the door finally opens on the second try. The inside of the room looks exactly how Brian left it. His duffle bag is thrown on the ground near the desk, still neatly packed. The only thing he took out when he first arrived in town before going to meet Alex is a book which is still sitting on the bed. 

“You want to grab something to eat?” Brian asks, “I’m starving.”

“Yeah, in a second,” Tim says. 

He takes the camera out of his pocket and places it and a spare tape on the bed. 

“I want to check this first,” he says, “It’s been burning a hole in my pocket all day.”

Brian stares at the camera a moment, pondering what kinds of things might be on it. He hasn’t thought about it much throughout the course of the day, mostly because he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to believe that Alex would do something like this to them, and if that’s what’s on the tapes then...well then there’s no use denying it is there? It’s not something he’s excited to confront. 

He picks up the tape that Tim placed next to the camera and examines it as Tim turns the camera on. 

“This is your spare tape, right?” he asks. 

“Yeah,” Tim says. 

“It looks full to me.”

“I don’t remember changing it,” Tim says, “But then again my memory isn’t exactly reliable right now.”

Tim starts fast-forwarding through the video on the current tape, and as he does his expression gradually gets more and more alarmed. 

“What is it?” Brian asks. 

“This is a whole new tape. I don’t remember shooting any of this,” Tim says, “Here, give me the other one.”

He switches out the tape and the two of them sit down on the bed. There, the camera held between them, they watch the events of the past few days unfold, and they finally get their answers.

* * *

 

_ I’m going to kill him.  _

Brian rolls over and stares towards the window. 

_ I know he and Tim were never best friends or anything, but why would he just attack him like that?  _

The room feels too cold. The last frame of Tim in the abandoned hospital, trying desperately to hold off his fit, is burned into his brain. How dare Alex. How  _ dare  _ he. Of all the things Tim could possibly deserve, this was the farthest from any of them. What Alex did to Tim wasn’t just cruel, it was  _ disgusting.  _

_ And he doesn’t remember any of it. If he can forget something like that...then what am I forgetting? _

Alex had a camera with him. Somewhere there are other tapes like this one. Somewhere there is more evidence of what he did. 

_ I have to find it. He wouldn’t do something like this for no reason. There  _ has  _ to be a reason.  _

And then there was that creature to think about...That dark looming figure. Something about it sets Brian on edge like nothing else he’s ever experienced. Of all the things he and Tim discussed after finishing the tape, that thing wasn’t one of them. It’s the elephant in the room neither of them want to admit that they saw. But it was there. 

_ I’m going to kill him.  _

Brian feels an insistent prickling in his throat and he sits up. He suppresses a cough, trying not to wake Tim. It passes eventually, but it leaves him feeling somewhat shaken. Tim has always had a bit of a smoker’s cough, but the timing of Tim’s fits in the video feels too convenient. Something always seemed to happen once they started, as if that creature watching him and Alex was assaulting his body with its mere presence. Suddenly a little cough doesn’t feel that little anymore. 

Brian fumbles for his phone on the nightstand. He tried calling Seth a couple times throughout the night, but each time he got no answer. When he checks his messages he is once again disappointed to find nothing new. He gets up and walks over to the window. He peeks through the shades at the dimly lit parking lot outside. He realizes as his eyes dart back and forth between patches of darkness that he won’t be sleeping tonight. The room doesn’t feel as safe as it did before. Where is Alex right now? Is he looking for them? Was his aim simply to hurt them, or were his intentions even more sinister? He could be miles away from them by now, or he could still be out there right now. Waiting. 

Brian takes a step back and takes a deep breath. Now isn’t the time to be thinking about that. Now is the time to think about where they’re going next. Right now, home isn’t an option. It would be too easy for Alex to find them then. They can’t stay out here forever either, but for now the best option seems to be to keep moving. At least until things calm down a bit. But they won’t have to run forever. 

_ He’s not going to get away with this.  _

  
  



	2. Rendezvous

The laws of reality don’t exist in this place. It’s the only thing he knows for certain. Every time he thinks he understands the layout, something changes. A boulder appears where there wasn’t one before. A wrong turn leads from a building into an endless forest. Rain can fall at one end of tunnel, but the sun can shine at the other. He might find it fascinating if it weren’t for the endless pounding headaches he endures as he tries over and over again to escape. 

Sometimes that thing is there. Watching him from the darkness. Mocking his pain. That’s what it does, after all. It’s always there in the background, staring at him though it has no eyes with which to see. He was always a little frightened of it when he noticed it in the Marble Hornets footage he was tasked with reviewing, appearing through stuttering glitches and audio distortion only to disappear seconds later, but in person it's far worse than he could have ever imagined. A silent, menacing observer that radiates malevolent intent. He never mentioned what he saw on the tapes to anyone because he hadn't wanted to admit that it was real. He wanted to believe he was seeing things, but deep down he'd always known that he wasn't. A trick of the light or a tear in the film wouldn't appear in the exact same way over and over again though the tape, location, and time of day changed with each scene, but still he denied what he saw. It was silly - childish, really - and now he is paying for his actions.

He doesn’t know how long he’s been here. Night and day don’t seem to exist in the normal sense, and what feels like days could only be hours or even minutes. He can’t remember the last time he ate or slept, but it doesn’t seem to matter. He never feels tired or hungry. The only thing he feels is constant fear. 

He runs blindly through the trees, twigs and leaves whipping his face as he races past. His palms are numb and raw from all the times he’s stumbled and fallen. He knows running won’t keep that thing from catching up with him, but he can’t think clearly enough to stop. He knows he’ll keep running until he can’t anymore. Until his body burns itself up and he finally falls to the ground and doesn’t get up, he’ll keep running. 

The next time he stumbles he feels a stab of pain in his skull worse than he’s ever felt in his life, as if someone has driven a metal spike into the back of his head. He cries out and clutches his head in his hands, curling up into a ball on the hard ground. The burning pain spreads to his lungs and he retches and splutters into his hands. He feels something wet and metallic bubbling up in his throat, and terror seizes his chest. 

_ I’m dying. I’m dying I’m dying I’m dying it’s going to kill me oh God.  _

Then, slowly, the pain subsides. He’s able to get onto his hands and knees and spit out the blood accumulating in his mouth. He coughs a few more times and sucks in ragged breaths that taste of copper. The air around him feels heavy with moisture, as if heralding a coming storm. He looks around him, unsure of where he’s been taken this time. Everything around him is bathed in blackness except a solitary patch of asphalt above which stands a street lamp. Then he notices someone curled up in the pool of light. He staggers to his feet. 

“Hey,” he calls, his voice hoarse. 

He walks towards them and realizes it’s a girl lying on her side. Her brown hair is splayed in a pool around her head, and she’s curled up  with her arms close to her body. He stops as he draws closer. Something is wrong. She’s too still. Too pale. He crouches down next to her and, with the greatest care he can, rolls her over. His breath catches in his throat. 

“Sarah?” he whispers. 

Her eyes stare up at the sky, cloudy and listless. Dark bruises color her neck, and her lips look blue even in the dim light. He falls backwards, eyes stretched wide in horror. 

_ She can’t be real. It’s trying to trick me. She can’t… _

Then he sees the paper gripped tightly in her hands. He reaches it out and pulls it free of her stiff grasp. It’s several sheets stapled together, and at the top in clear block print he sees the words, “Marble Hornets. A film by Alex Kralie.” He drops it immediately and jumps to his feet. 

_ He did this. No one else would do this. It was  _ him. 

It starts to rain, and he becomes soaked immediately in the torrential downpour. It hides Sarah from him, and even the street light seems dim in the deluge. He turns and starts running again in a non-specific direction. He doesn’t get very far. His legs give way and he finds himself on the ground again. His vision is blurring, but he sees it. Is it waiting for him to finally give in and die? Or does it enjoy watching him suffer too much to let that happen? His lungs feel starved for air, and he can’t even breathe deeply enough to cough. He gasps for breath, clawing at his throat and grasping at the ground. Red and green spots swim across his vision, and then just like that everything is gone. 

 

When he next wakes up he’s lying in a pile of rotting insulation and cardboard somewhere in an ancient looking building. His entire body aches, and his limbs feel heavy and useless. He groans and tries to sit up, but he feels too weak to do even that. He doesn’t know where he is, and he certainly doesn’t remember how he got there. He can’t remember anything at all. Only one relentless thought plays over and over again in his mind. It stabs at his brain as he crawls across the ground towards the exit. It claws at his thoughts as he pulls himself up. 

_ I have to go back. I have to go back. It’s there, it’s all there. I have to go back. I have to get back there somehow. I need to get back to the ark. _

* * *

 

 

Brian can hear the water running in the bathroom. Every once in awhile he hears Tim cough. He rubs his eyes, regretting staying up so late. He doesn’t know how Tim was able to sleep. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he was faking it. There’s no way for him to know, and in the end it doesn’t really matter. Sleep or no sleep he can’t imagine either of them are feeling very rested. 

He takes his phone out of his pocket and stares at it. He debates with himself for a moment before committing and punching in a number. The phone rings twice...four times...six times. 

_ “Hey this is Seth. If I’m not picking up, I’m probably in class, so leave a message and I’ll call you back. Thanks!” _

Brian sighs. 

“Seth, if you’re actually getting these you’re probably sick of them by now, but I really need you to call me back, buddy. We’re still in town if you're here and you need us. Just let me know where you are. Thanks.”

He ends the call. The sick feeling he got when he first thought of what Alex might have done to Seth just gets worse and worse every time he has to leave a voicemail. Seth is usually good about calling back, so if he isn’t picking up by now then something has to be seriously wrong. 

The water shuts off in the bathroom. Tim comes out, dabbing at his mouth with a towel. He stashes his medication in his pocket and tosses the towel on the bed. 

“Nothing?” he asks. 

Brian hunches over and rubs his eyes. 

“No.”

“Do you even know if he actually came up here with Alex? I mean, did you ever see him?” Tim asks. 

“No. And I know what you’re going to say, but if he were fine he would have called me back by now. I just have the worst feeling that Alex did the exact same thing to him that he did to us.”

“Do you know anyone else who might know where he or Alex are? Sarah, or...oh what’s that one guy’s name? Jay?”

“No, I don’t think either of them would know anything. Sarah’s supposed to be at some actor’s workshop or something, and Jay just helps with whatever needs doing. He wouldn’t know where Seth or Alex are.”

“Doesn’t Alex have a girlfriend? I’ve seen her on set a few times.”

“Yeah. Amy.”

“Well if she’s his girlfriend she probably knows something, right? Try calling her.”

“I don’t have her number, and besides she moved recently. I think Alex said something about her transferring schools.” 

Brian stops. Wait, where exactly did Alex say she was going? He knows it. It’s on the tip of his tongue. Where did she go? He bolts upright. 

“No, no hang on,” he says, racking his brain, “I think she might have moved  _ here.” _

Tim stares at him. 

“Here? Like here in town? Are you serious?”

“Is there a university here in town?”

“Yeah, there's one. It’s pretty small, but yeah. Do you really think he would have told her anything, though?”

“Probably not, but it might be worth a shot,” Brian says. He stands up, but he stops and sighs, “No, we can’t. She might tell Alex about us. She knows who I am, and she’s his girlfriend, so if we show up asking questions, even if we tell her not to say anything she still might.”

“There has to be some way to talk to her without her identifying us,” Tim says, “She’s our only lead right now, Brian.”

"I know."

"And how do we know he hasn't tried to attack her too? If he has, that's information we need to know."

Brian gives Tim a look. 

"You aren't seriously suggesting that he would do to her what he did to us, are you?"

"Come on, it's not like guys have never hurt their girlfriends before, and if he really is attacking anyone who's close to him..."

_ This is all so messed up.  _

Brian drags his hands through his hair and takes a deep breath. He knows Tim is right. If she could be in danger, he would feel awful if they didn't try to warn her, but at the same time he can’t think of a scenario where she would even believe them. She might if he’d already done something to hurt her, but by then it might be too late. But say it wasn’t too late, and she did believe them. She could protect herself then, but if Alex caught on then he would know that he and Tim were still alive. They would lose their advantage. No matter how he looks at it, Brian can’t imagine a perfect scenario where Amy believes them and they still remain safe from Alex. 

“He wouldn’t hurt her,” he says after a moment of thought, “I’m sure of it. Amy is the one thing in his life that makes him happy, like  _ really  _ makes him happy. He would want to protect her from this, and he has to know that she would turn on him if she knew what he did, so I doubt he's let her in on anything useful. If we try to warn her and tell her what’s going on, it could jeopardize her safety and ours. She’s just going to have to fend for herself. She’s tough. She’ll be fine.” 

Tim takes a deep breath and crosses his arms. 

“I still don’t like it.”

“Yeah, I don’t either, but we don’t have much of a choice. This is our best option.”

“You do realize this brings our leads down to zero, right?” Tim asks. 

“Human leads, yeah,” Brian says, “At least until Seth gets back to me. I’ve left enough voicemails. If he’s still out there, he’ll contact us when he can.”

“Yeah, assuming Alex hasn’t already finished him off,” Tim mutters. 

Brian gives him a look, but Tim doesn’t say anything else. Brian doesn’t push it. He knows Tim is just being cynical because he’s stressed. Brian looks out the window at the hotel parking lot and taps his fingers on his knee. 

“I guess all that’s left to do now is leave before Alex figures out we’re here,” he says.

“And then what?” Tim asks. 

“Somewhere he has footage of what happened. I know he does. When we get back home, we’re going to find it.”

“Stealing a bunch of tapes out from under his nose isn’t going to be easy, you know. We’ve both seen how many tapes he actually has. He probably has bags of them somewhere, and he’ll notice if they all go missing.”

“Then we don’t take them all at once. We’ll take the ones we need, watch them, and then return them. He’ll never know.”

“Ok, so we find out why he’s doing this, and then what? Confront him about it?”

“I don’t know...I guess that depends on what we find.”

Tim sighs. 

“It just seems like we’re taking a bigger risk than we need to. I would be fine never knowing why he tried to kill us and just high-tailing it out of here.”

“I know, I just...you don’t know him like I do, Tim. I have to know what would drive him to do something this insane.”

“Hm. Whatever helps you sleep at night, I guess.”

Tim pauses a moment and puts his hands in his pockets. 

“I need a smoke,” he says, “Be right back.”

Brian watches as he leaves the hotel room. As the door slams behind him, Brian leans back in the chair and groans. He’s so tired. He just feels nervous all the time after what happened. Even just going out into the parking lot to retrieve something from his car, he’d had to constantly resist the urge to hide in the bushes in case someone saw him. It’s not a feeling he’s used to. Part of him wonders if they should leave tonight and get a head start, but he decides against it. They need to be well rested. The drive itself isn’t longer than a day or so, but if they’re going to wait out Alex they’ll have to take their time. He can’t say he’s looking forward to that. 

Brian rests his head on his hand and leans back in the chair. His eyelids feel like they’re made of lead, and it’s all he can do just to try and keep them open. Eventually he loses the battle and drifts off to sleep.

* * *

 

 

“So, just how many of these are we going to get?” Tim asks. 

“Just a few,” Brian says, looking around the Walgreens for the photo department.

“You still don’t think this is kind of weird? I mean, I get that if we both get hit with any more convenient amnesia that we’ll need a record of what happened, but...I don’t know. This feels too much like what Alex has been doing the past month.”

“I know. I don’t like it either, but we’re kind of in a weird situation.”

Finally Brian spots a rack of film and other assorted camera necessities. Among the various canisters of film and packets of photo paper, he spots what he’s looking for. He grabs a box of blank video tapes. 

“We probably won’t even use the camera much anyway,” Brian says, “But it’s good to be prepared in case we decide to do something potentially dangerous.”

“As long as you don’t, like, start filming yourself every waking moment or something,” Tim says.

Brian grins.

“Are you kidding me? A face like this is just begging to be on camera,” he says. 

Tim rolls his eyes, but Brian sees the tiniest bit of a smile tug at his lips. They turn away from the rack and start walking back towards the front of the store. Brian looks back down at the tapes in his hands, checking the package to make sure they’ll work with the camera they have. He doesn’t even realize that Tim has stopped until he runs into him. Tim swears, and before Brian can even ask what’s wrong he’s being shoved into another aisle. 

“Tim, what the hell?!” Brian hisses. 

“I just saw Amy come in,” Tim says. 

“What?! Are you sure it was her?”

“Pretty sure.”

Brian pushes the tapes into Tim’s hands and peeks around the end of the shelving unit. Sure enough, Amy is standing right between them and the doorway, examining a wall of makeup. She takes a moment to check her phone, but doesn’t show signs of moving. Brian holds back a sigh of frustration and turns back to Tim. 

“We’ll need to sneak out while she’s not looking. She probably won’t notice us,” he says. 

Tim just nods and the two of them weave their way through the other aisles towards the registers. They pause in an aisle just out of sight of the door. Brian checks to make sure that Amy’s back is turned, and then he and Tim make a break for the exit. Brian glances nervously back and forth between the door and Amy as they move, but as he predicted she doesn’t look up at them once. He allows himself to relax as they finally reach the first set of doors. 

_ Beep! Beep! Beep!  _

“Shit!” Tim says. 

They both freeze. They look each other in the eye for a terrifying moment before they both realize.  _ They haven’t paid for the tapes yet.  _

_ Oh God. Why. Why now. Son of a- _

The nearest cashier looks up at them. At first she looks disinterested, but then she notices their tense and twitchy behavior and the fact that neither of them are holding a bag or a receipt. Her apathy quickly turns to confusion and then alarm. And worst of all, Amy has definitely noticed them now. 

“H-hey, you two!” the cashier says, a little too late to stop them if they were actually trying to shoplift something. Brian takes a deep breath and forces himself to relax. 

“Oh jeez, we are so sorry,” he says. He grabs the tapes out of Tim’s hands and steps away from the doors, finally shutting the infernal contraptions up. He notices the cashier’s hand hovering by the phone. He feels a jolt of panic in his chest. 

“Uh, wait, hang on. We weren’t actually trying to steal anything, I swear. You don’t need to call the cops, honest,” Brian says. 

He walks over and puts the tapes on the counter. The cashier looks ready to hit him with the nearest available object if he tries anything. Brian quickly fishes a 20 out of his wallet and puts it on the counter. 

“Here.”

The cashier hesitates a moment, as if she expects the money to explode when she touches it, but after a few seconds she unfreezes and starts ringing him up. Brian glances back at Tim who is still frozen by the door, hovering between staying where he is and walking back over to join Brian. Amy is now staring at the both of them with an odd look on her face, as if trying to place where exactly she’s seen them before. 

_ Shit.  _

The cashier gives him his change and a receipt. She eyes him with obvious distrust, but Brian is just glad that she didn’t actually call the police on them. He breathes a sigh of relief and starts heading back over to Tim. 

_ Maybe Amy will just let it go. Maybe she won’t actually say anything.  _

“Hey, wait up a second.”

_ Shit.  _

Brian and Tim both turn around as Amy comes up to them. Tim looks ready to bolt, but Brian gives him a look telling him to calm down and act natural. 

“You guys are Alex’s friends, right? You’re working with him on that movie thing of his,” Amy says, “Didn’t know he hung around with such brazen thieves.”

Brian can tell that she’s joking, but the look the cashier is giving them makes her quip significantly less funny than it would ordinarily be. He laughs nervously. 

“Uh, hey Amy. Didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Brian, right? And um...sorry I can’t remember your name.”

“Tim,” Tim says. 

“Oh, right. Ok,” she says. She pauses a moment and looks at the tapes in Brian’s hand, “Heading out to film some stuff?”

“Uh, yeah.”

“That’s cool.”

Amy pauses a moment and fidgets with the strap of her bag. She takes a breath and opens her mouth to say something else, but she stops. She seems to debate with herself for a moment. Something is clearly bothering her, but Brian is too distracted by his own anxiety to notice much. He wants desperately to run away and get out on the road, but he knows if they act any weirder it’s just going to make Amy more likely to mention their encounter to Alex.

“So, um,” Amy says, “I’m guessing you’re heading out to meet up with Alex?”

“Well, we actually just finished shooting for today, and I remembered Alex saying that we were running low on tapes so I figured while we were out here we could pick some more up.”

“Oh. So, you’ve talked to him recently, then?”

“Yeah.”

“Um, this is,” she laughs a bit and fidgets some more with her bag, “this is actually kinda lame, but...do you think you could ask him why he’s not returning my calls? I mean, you guys are pretty busy, I know, but I don’t think he’s getting my messages or something. You guys have been in town for two days, right? He hasn’t talked to me once since then, and it’s just...it’s a little weird, you know?”

“Wow, really? Yeah, that is weird.”

“Isn’t it? I don’t know what’s up with him,” she says, “Have you guys noticing anything?”

_ No nothing at all. He just tried to kill my best friend with a pipe. But he does that every other Tuesday so it’s all good.  _

“Um...maybe? He’s been kind of in a...a bad mood lately,” Brian says. 

Tim gives him an incredulous look. Brian knows that he’s just made the understatement of the year, but he ignores it. 

“Well, I’m glad it’s not just me,” Amy says, “Um, do you think if you find anything out you could text me or something?”

“Yeah. Yeah, no problem,” Brian says, “Although if he’s not telling you what’s up, I doubt he’ll tell us. You’re his girlfriend after all.”

Amy scoffs. 

“Sure doesn’t feel like it these days,” she says, “But yeah, I guess that’s a good point. You want me to text you if I find out anything?”

“Yeah, that would be great, thanks,” he says, “We’re just kind of worried about him, you know?”

“Oh, I know. Hey, I don’t think I have your phone number.”

“Yeah, I don’t think I have yours either.”

A few minutes later they’ve exchanged information, made their promises to text each other if something comes up, and gone their separate ways. The tension in Tim's shoulders finally relaxes, and he breathes a sigh of relief as they head out into the parking lot.

“So much to leaving her out of it,” he says, “but at least we know we didn’t miss out on anything by not talking to her. She doesn’t know any more than we do.”

“Yeah, I know,” Brian says, “but I think this could actually work out. She’s just as worried about Alex, so she’s not going to mention this to him, and with her on our side, we have a way into Alex’s head. He probably won’t suspect her of anything.”

“And if he does? If he goes after her and finds out that we’re still alive, we’re going to have a huge problem, Brian.”

Brian sighs. 

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” he says, “Come on, buddy, let’s try a little optimism here. This is what we wanted, remember?” 

“Optimism is a good way to get yourself killed.”

“Yeah, but it’s a good way not to go insane.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who left kudos and bookmarks after just the first chapter. You guys rock. ^^ Next chapter is going to be a little shorter than usual, and it'll consist entirely of plot-relevant Amlex fluff (unless I add something in during my revisions) so come back next weekend for that. :)


	3. The Usual Stuff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We now interrupt your regularly scheduled program for some very important Amlex fluff. This chapter is a bit short, but don't worry, this won't be a regular thing.

Amy isn’t sure why she’s still up. She finished her homework an hour ago, and she _knows_ that she needs to go to sleep, but she just doesn’t feel tired. She sighs and sits back in her chair and stares towards the window. She can see the lights from the windows of the other dorm in the distance and beyond that the lights of the town around them. Her roommate is dead to the world, and everything is completely silent. Even the rowdy neighbors aren’t active tonight, which is surprising. It seems like there’s always a group of people in the next room over drinking their illicit alcohol and playing Cards Against Humanity.

_I really should find a place off campus. Get a roommate or something and finally get some peace and quiet._

Her phone vibrates on her desk, startling her out of her thoughts. She grabs it before it has the chance to wake up her roommate in its struggle to get her attention. She doesn’t even check who it is as she gets up and quickly slips out into the hallway. She hits the send button and holds the phone up to her ear.

“Hello?” she says, “Whoever you are, you better have a good reason for calling this late.”

“Nice to hear from you, too.”

Amy stops.

“Alex? What the hell? It’s almost one in the morning!”

“Wow, is it really? I totally lost track of time. Shit, Amy, I’m sorry,” Alex says.

Amy sighs.

“No, it’s...fine. I wasn’t sleeping anyway. What are you doing up so late anyway?”

“Just going through some of the footage I shot today,” he says, “Time doesn’t really exist when you’re editing.”

He laughs slightly, and Amy can’t help but smile a bit.

“You’re going to wear yourself out at this rate,” she says, teasing, but her light mood doesn’t last. She takes a breath, “It’s good to finally hear from you. I haven’t gotten so much as a text since you told me you were in town.”

“Yeah...look, I’m really sorry about that. I swear I didn’t mean to ignore you this whole time I just…”

“Got busy…”

“Yeah.”

“Well, uh, how is it going? Are you at least getting some good stuff?”

“Oh, yeah, definitely. Brian’s been great, and the weather has been cooperating. There are some really good locations around here.”

“Where have you been filming? Didn’t you mention something about a hospital or whatever?”

“Uh, yeah. There’s this abandoned hospital one of the other actors told me about that we’ve been shooting in. I’m thinking it could probably pass as Brian’s old school or something, so Brian and I have been shooting some things in there. He’s probably going home tomorrow though.”

“Really? When? Maybe we can all grab some lunch or something.”

“I don’t know, but I don’t think he was feeling too well after our shoot today. There’s something going around back home.”

Amy frowns.

_He didn’t look sick when I talked to him..._

“Well that’s too bad. Tell him I said hi.”

“Sure. Um, I’m not actually leaving until later tomorrow, and Seth and I have pretty much wrapped things up. It’s kind of hard to get what we need done with hardly anyone here, so tomorrow I’m all yours.”

“Oh, really? You’re not going to go running off into the woods and abandon me again?” Amy teases.

“I promise. You have my undivided attention.”

“We should go get lunch at that little cafe place downtown. They’ve got, like, these new cinnamon roll things they’re making, and you have _got_ to try them.”

“Sounds like fun. Do you want to meet there around 11:30 or something?”

“That works.”

“I should probably let you go. We both need to get some sleep.”

“Alright, but you’re gonna make it up to me tomorrow.”

“Absolutely.”

Amy smiles.

“Hey. I love you.”

“Love you, too. Goodnight, Amy.”

Then the line goes dead.

* * *

 

The smell of coffee and pastries is heavy in the air of the small cafe. The rustic, wooden floor creaks as patrons cross back and forth throughout the large, but cozy room. Amy balances two plates, each with a cinnamon roll, and a cup of coffee in her hands. As she nears the table Alex rises and hurries over to help her.

“Ta da!” she says, “Here we go. These things are so good. I could eat, like, twenty of them.”

Alex laughs as they sit down.

“Oh really? What happened to watching your sugar?”

“I would make a thousand exceptions for these.”

She starts cutting her roll up with a fork.

“So how are you settling in?” Alex asks.

“Pretty well, though I can’t wait to get out of the dorms. Everyone is so loud all the time,” she says with a sigh, “Classes are good though. I like it better than the school back home. My professors actually seem to know what they’re doing.”

She laughs.

“I’m glad this is all working out for you,” he says, “I know this wasn’t an easy decision to make.”

“Yeah, well, in the long run I think it’ll be good. This school is more expensive, but its programs are so much better.”

She takes a sip of her coffee, giving Alex an expecting look.

“So…” she says, faking being nonchalant, “Are you still thinking about transferring?”

“Yeah, I think so. Your school’s actually one of the places I looked at when I was still deciding. I liked it, but it seemed so far at the time.”

“Not so far anymore,” she says, giving him a coy smile.

“Yeah, not so much. I’m trying to get all my paperwork in order. I’m hoping to get registered in time for the fall semester, but we’ll see. It’ll be nice being able to see you on a regular basis again, but I have to finish filming first.”

“Oh, yeah, of course. How is that going, by the way?”

“Well, like I said last night we’ve been getting some good footage up here. Over all, it’s been a lot of work, but I’m trying to finish this up as fast as possible.”

“Cool. Kinda sucks that I can’t help anymore. It was kind of fun watching you work.”

“Well, maybe when I come up here, you can help me out on my next project. You know how short on help I always am.”

She smiles.

“It’s a date then.”

They both lapse into silence as they tackle their food. Outside it begins to sprinkle as the clouds roll in. More people come into the cafe to get out of the weather, and the already noisy din of people chatting and coffee machines whirring just gets louder. Amy leans in closer so she and Alex can actually hear each other.

“I’ve missed you, you know,” she says.

“I know. I’ve missed you too,” Alex says. He reaches across the table and puts his hand on hers, absently running his thumb across her fingers, “I know I’ve said this before, but...I just hate having to be so far away from you. It makes everything so much more difficult.”

Amy smiles.

“Yeah. It’s ok though. We do alright.”

She pauses a moment before breaking out into a grin.

“Ok, sappy moment over. I have _got_ to tell you what Brianna did the other day. Oh my God.”

Even after the food is gone, they continue to chat and share stories, past and present. The routine is well known to both of them: Amy tells a story, Alex makes a sarcastic comment, Amy admonishes him, Alex makes a second sarcastic comment, Amy laughs and says something to make it worse. Before long they’re both giggling like school children, and for just a little bit they both get to forget all the things that have been worrying them. Meanwhile, the rain ebbs in and out, and as another bank of rain clouds passes them by, they decide that they should leave before it starts up again.

“Do you want to go to your dorm or something,” Alex asks as they walk around back to the gravel parking lot. Amy makes a face.

“Ugh, definitely not. I try to spend as much time as I can away from that place. Let’s just go back to your hotel room for a bit. We could stop by my room and grab a DVD or something to watch. It’ll be fun.”

“Sounds good.”

 

“Oh come on.”

“Come on, Alex, I thought you were supposed to be the movie guy,” Amy teases, sitting back on the bed and doing absolutely nothing to help.

“Ha ha,” Alex says, trying once again to get the hotel DVD player to work. He tries changing to the DVD player’s channel on the TV again, but the screen stays black.

“Is it plugged in?”

“Of course it’s plugged in.”

“Did you try turning it off and turning it back on again?”

Alex gives her a look, and she just gives him her classic “you know you love me” smile. Amy swings her legs over the side of the bed and stands up.

“Well, if we can’t get the stupid thing to work, why don’t you show me what you guys have been doing the past few days?” she asks.

Alex gets an odd look in his eye. He turns his attention away from the DVD player for a second, trying to act casual but she can see the way he tensed up at the mention of his film. For a moment Amy swears she saw a touch of panic in his eyes, but she decides she must have imagined it.

“Um, it’s all really rough. I haven’t even started going through it. I promise none of it is very interesting. It’s mostly B-roll.”

Amy raises an eyebrow.

_Then what were you doing last night?_

“Just show me your favorite scene then. Come on. We’ve got nothing else to watch.”

“I...really would rather go through it all first.”

Amy pouts.

“You’re such a butt,” she says. She gets up and picks the remote up off the top of the TV and changes the mode back to cable, “Maybe there’s a bad soap on or something.”

She flops back onto the bed and pats the spot next to her. Alex hovers for a moment before relenting and sitting next to her on the bed. Amy flips through the channels until she lands on a basic crime drama. She sets the remote down and nestles her head into Alex’s shoulder, settling in to watch. Two characters are in a lab talking about some piece of evidence. One of them has a revelation, and chaos ensues. After a few more minutes, Alex finally says something.

“I have no idea what’s going on.”

Amy bursts out laughing.

As the drama continues, someone gets shot and the killer blows something up. Someone else is having an affair, and at least two people deliver long monologues about forensic nonsense. By the end, Alex and Amy still have no idea what is going on. The channel announces that it will be continuing the marathon of the show before the _dramatic season finale_ after a few commercials.

“Wait, I think I’ve heard of this show,” Amy says, “Doesn’t it have, like, ten or eleven seasons or something?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Alex says.

“Of course you wouldn’t, you dork. You don’t watch anything that isn’t at least twenty years old and super underground.”

“What is that supposed to mean? I just appreciate the classics!” he says.

The next episode begins, opening with someone getting brutally murdered on a forest trail by some whack-job in a mask. The unlucky victim’s over-dramatic screams fade away, and as the opening theme begins to play, Amy pokes Alex.

“Hey, you should go get me a soda from the soda machine,” she says.

Alex groans.

“Didn’t you just have a cup of coffee?”

“Pleeease? I’ll give you money.”

“Fine. What do you want?”

“I don’t care. You know what I like.”

They both get up and Amy digs around in her purse for spare change. She fishes out some quarters and hands them to Alex.

“Thanks honey,” she says, kissing him on the cheek.

He rolls his eyes, but she can see the slightest hint of a smile on his face. He turns and starts walking out the door.

“Hurry back!” she says, “Don’t get lost.”

“I won’t.”

She sits on the bed and watches as he goes out into the hallway. As soon as the door closes, she’s on her feet. She doesn’t have much time before he comes back. Maybe if she’s lucky, the soda will get stuck inside the ancient machine. She finds Alex’s duffel bag and opens it up.

“Tapes, tapes, tapes,” she mutters, “Where are you?”

She pushes aside his clothes and digs around in the bottom of the bag, but finds nothing. She sighs in frustration. Where would he keep his tapes? She pauses a moment as she looks around, and she realizes how stupid she’s being. What could possibly be on them that would prove anything? It’ll probably just be B-roll like Alex said, but she can’t shake this nagging feeling that he’s lying to her. She opens up drawers and looks under the bed. Nothing. Then she spots the safe on a shelf near the TV.

_Surely not._

She walks over to it and tries to pull it open. She expects it to swing open easily, but it doesn’t. She punches in four random numbers. It’s locked.

_No way. Why…?_

She racks her brain, trying to think of what passcode he might use. She tries his house number, but the safe just flashes at her again. How many tries does she have before it shuts down? She gets another idea and punches in “1986.” The safe opens. Her heart is hammering in her chest as she opens the door to the safe, and she’s not sure why she feels so scared.

There are so many tapes inside. Most of them look empty, but there are two that look full. Neither are labeled, but they have to be recent. She starts panicking. Alex could be back any minute now.

_Oh God, what do I do? He’ll notice if I take one. But there are so many empty ones, maybe…_

She grabs the top one and shifts the tapes around so they look undisturbed. She closes and locks the safe and then stuffs the tape into her purse. She zips it up and quickly sits back down on the bed, trying to breathe and look casual. She tries focusing on the crime drama in progress, but she can’t. Her mind is racing as fast as her heart.

_Why does he need so many tapes just for a two day shoot? There were only two full ones, so why the heck-_

The lock on the door clicks and Alex comes back inside, a bottle of Sprite in hand. Amy smiles and stands up.

“Thank you,” she says, taking it from him.

“No problem,” he says. He pauses a moment, “You alright? You look a little flushed.”

“Hmm? No I’m fine,” she says, turning and walking back to the bed, “Sit down.”

He looks like he wants to say more, but he doesn’t. He drops it and sits down next to her. Amy tightens her hands around her soda, hoping Alex can’t see how much they’re shaking.


	4. Rabbit Hole

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Playtime's over, children.

He can’t remember the past week. No matter how hard he tries, nothing comes to him. Memories are fleeting shadows that never come into focus, and the most frustrating part is that he knows that he should recognize them. He should know what creatures make those dark shapes across his mind, but he doesn’t, and he knows he doesn’t. Every waking hour feels like a battle with his own head, and after several days of turning up nothing, he starts to think that it’s a fight he just can’t win.

He has the camera still, but the tape deck is empty. He found it next to him when he woke up in the abandoned building with a week of his memory gone. He knows anything could have happened during that missing time, but it seems odd to him that his camera wouldn’t have a tape in it. It just doesn’t make sense. It’s one of the many thoughts that haunt him late at night.

He’s taken to scrawling things on the notepad in his hotel room - the hotel room that he doesn’t remember checking into, in a town he’s never been to. He's afraid that if he doesn't write down all the urgent thoughts that plague him, he'll forget them as well, so he writes. All hours of the day and night he writes. He doesn’t have tape to put the notes up with, so they litter the floor. Every morning and every night he looks at them again, trying to figure out what they all mean. The word “ark” appears over and over again. It’s the thought that frustrates him the most.

He doesn’t know what it could possibly be, or if it’s a thing or a place (though a voice in the back of his mind seems to think it’s a place), or why he needs to find it. He just knows it’s important. Somehow finding it is going to fix this. It’s going to get him the resolution he needs.

 _Find the ark,_ the notes say, _Find the ark._

There’s one note that is more important than the others. While his notes about the ark are numerous, small, and scattered, this one is written in dark marker on a page he tore out of a phone book. It’s stuck to the TV screen, held in place by static electricity, as a constant reminder. An urgent warning.

 _Alex’s fault,_ it reads. Below the heavily underlined words is a symbol. A circle with an X through it.

He’s seen this symbol before. He remembers before he went off to college a trip his family took to New York City. At Ellis Island they learned, among other things, about the symbols used to mark the immigrants who came in. Those marked with a circled X were those the immigration office deemed “insane.” That doesn’t feel like this symbol’s meaning though. He knows it’s used in math as well. Something about vectors. He’s not as familiar with that usage of it, but it hardly matters. That doesn’t feel right either.

No, this symbol’s meaning seems far too complex for such simple explanations. Far too dark. It stands for something beyond his comprehension. Something powerful, something unspeakable. Something lurking in the darkness, just waiting for him to give himself over to it.  

 _It must have a name. It has to_ be _something. I know I’m not imagining it. I_ know _it’s real._

As the day drags on, he finds himself growing more and more exhausted by all the urgent thoughts pounding against his skull. A deep fatigue seeps into his bones, and he find himself too tired to write anymore. He lies on the bed, staring into the shadowy corners of his room, only getting up when his coughing fits become too much and he has to go to the sink for water. As evening turns to night, and night turns to morning, he stares at the page stuck to the TV screen. Finally his body begins to rebel against his paranoid desire to stay awake, and he finds his eyes are growing heavier and heavier. He feels a jolt of panic in his chest as the darkness drags him down.

 _I can’t. He’s out there._ It _is out there. I can’t. What if…_

And then he’s gone.

* * *

 

 

"You did _what_?"

"There were two full tapes, but I just grabbed the one. Look, I know this was a terrible idea, ok? But I've already done it so might as well see what's on it, right?"

Brian has no idea how he should be feeling right now. On the one hand he's thrilled that Amy has managed to get her hands on one of Alex's tapes, a tape that likely contains footage from the past few days, but on the other hand he's terrified that Alex will find out that the tape is missing. He rubs his eyes and begins pacing around the room. He startles when the door to the room opens, but it's just Tim returning with dinner. Tim gives him an expectant look, and Brian holds up a finger for him to wait a second.

"So can you help or not? Because I don't have anything that can play this," Amy says.

"Tim has a camera Alex gave him for behind the scenes stuff. That would probably play the tape," Brian says, "Hang on, let me put you on speaker."

He hits the speaker button and sets the phone down on the desk. Tim sets their food down and joins Brian by the phone.

"Can you hear me?" Brian asks.

"Yeah," Amy says, "So you can get the tape to play?"

"I think so," Brian says.

"Great. Alex is leaving town tomorrow morning, so I think we should meet tonight."

"Tonight?"

"That way I can get this back to him before he realizes it's gone."

"Yeah, that makes sense."

"Ok. Where is your hotel?"

"It's the one on Flint Drive. Next to the Arby's."

"You're kidding."

"What?"

"I'm in the parking lot of that hotel right now. Alex and I were hanging out in his room for a while. That's when I got the tape. I just left."

Time seems to stop. Brian hears Amy say something else but he doesn't comprehend it. He and Tim give each other the exact same look at the exact same time.

_How are we still alive?_

"I can't believe we never checked," Brian whispers, covering his phone with his hand, "Of _course_ we would check into the same hotel if we were going to be here together. Of all the things to forget!"

He manages to stop himself from kicking the desk. How could he be so stupid?! To be fair to himself, it isn't as if his memory is a picture of accuracy right now, but he should have at least remembered that _one important detail_.

"We need to leave right now," Tim says.

"Guys?" Amy asks, her voice muffled.

"Brian," Tim insists.

Brian waves at Tim to shush and hang on a second. Tim doesn't say anything else, but he doesn't wait for Brian to agree. He immediately starts putting all their stuff together.

"Sorry about that," Brian says, uncovering the phone, "Um, is Alex still in the hotel?”

“Yeah? But-.”

“Ok, since you're here, why don't we just meet now?"

"Ok, sure. Uh...what should I do? Should I just come to your room or...?"

"No. No, just...hang on a second. Let's..."

 _If Alex is in the hotel right now, he might see us leave if he goes anywhere outside his room. If we wait to leave until he goes somewhere else, we might be stuck here_ and _we won't know where he is. Dammit dammit_ dammit.

"Let's just meet in the Arby's parking lot in fifteen minutes, ok? We'll figure out what to do from there."

"Brian, are you ok? You're acting really odd right now."

"I know. I'll explain everything I can in a few minutes. Just meet us in the parking lot."

"Ok, whatever you say. See you in fifteen."

"Ok. Bye."

Brian hangs up and takes a deep breath.

"So much for not getting her involved."

"She was always going to get involved, Brian," Tim says, "I don't think anything you could have done would have changed that. At least now she'll know the truth and she can protect herself."

"What do you think she'll do when she sees that tape? It has to either be Alex attacking you or Alex attacking me. She said there were two full tapes in the safe, and you can bet neither of them have anything innocent on them."

"I...I honestly don't know. But we should be prepared to leave right away in case something happens. If Alex sees us, or if Amy decides to do something stupid, we can’t be around."

"Maybe we should take her with us if we need to run."

"What?! No, we can't-"

"If he's going to hurt her, then wouldn't it make sense to get her away from him?"

"We don't know that he's after her."

"You're the one who said that he might go after her next!"

"Ok, yeah, fine! I said that! But it's going to be hard enough being on the run with just the two of us. Three people? Forget it."

Tim stops and takes a deep, trying to clear his head.

"Look, I want to help Amy too. Believe me, she's the last person I want to see get hurt, but she has a life here. If there's a chance that she can go on like nothing happened, I think we should try and get her to take that chance instead of running off to who knows where with two strangers."

Brian starts to argue, but he stops when he sees the look on Tim's face. He finally concedes. Tim has a point. As sick as it makes him to think about leaving Amy here where Alex might hurt her, there would be far more risks involved in taking her with them, especially if Alex doesn't even know that they're still alive. For once, they have to think about themselves first. They're the ones whose lives are in immediate danger after all.

"Alright. Let's go."

They gather up their stuff, and as they head out into the hallway, Brian desperately wishes that he brought a jacket with a hood or something. He would feel a lot safer with something between him and any potential witnesses. Brian quickly checks out at the front desk, and then he and Tim are out the door and in the parking lot. Brian feels like they managed to get out without being seen, but he can't know for sure. That thought drives him crazy as he starts his car and drives into the Arby's parking lot.

Amy is standing outside her car, waiting for them with her arms crossed and her bright yellow hair blowing around her face. She looks like some kind of avenging angel. Brian didn’t think it was possible to dread the coming conversation any more than he already was. He parks the car and rolls down the window.

“So are you going to tell me what’s going on or what?” she asks.

“Yeah, but not here,” Brian says, “Is there somewhere out of the way we can go to talk?”

“What’s wrong with here? I don’t understand why you guys are being so...so…”

“Paranoid?” Brian offers with a sigh.

“Yes,” Amy says, pointing an accusing finger at them before crossing her arms again.

“Amy, I promise we’ll explain what’s going on in a few minutes,” Tim chimes in from the passenger's seat, “But we really need to get somewhere safe right now. We can go anywhere but here.”

“Ok, fine. Whatever. Let’s just go downtown or something,” she says.

“We’ll follow you there,” Brian says.

He rolls up the window as Amy turns and gets into her car. They wait until she pulls out of the parking lot to start following her down the road. Neither of them speak the whole way to the downtown area. Tim coughs a few times, and Brian’s gut doesn’t relax until they park in a lot on the edge of the downtown area next to Amy’s car.

Amy gets out and marches over to their car.

“Ok, start explaining,” she says as soon as they get out of the car, “What the hell is going on with Alex? Why are you both so goddamn scared?!”

Brian isn’t even sure how to start this conversation. Tim seems to be at a bit of a loss as well because he’s just looking at Brian as if to say, _“People are your area, not mine.”_ Unfortunately for the both of them, Brian’s famous social skill-set does not include a nice phrase or winning expression that can smooth over this situation.

“Well, I don’t need to tell you that Alex has been acting weird the past few months,” Brian starts.

“Yeah, no shit,” Amy says.

“But it never really seemed like a big deal until...well, until now,” he continues, “So...two days ago, Tim and I both woke up in the abandoned hospital we were supposed to be shooting in with no memory of how we got there. At all. All we could remember was that we came out here with Alex, and everything past that was just...gone.”

Amy gives them a skeptical look. She seemed to wonder for a moment if she should call them out on whatever weird prank they’re playing on her, but in the end she decides to humor them.

“Um...ok. That’s weird. What the heck happened? I mean, I guess you don’t know what happened, but, like, what do you _think_ happened?”

Brian hesitates.

“We think whatever is on that tape will tell us _exactly_ what happened. Hopefully to me, more specifically. We already know what happened to Tim, but-”

Tim sighs and rolls his eyes.

“What Brian is so delicately trying to dance around is that Alex attacked us, Amy. When I woke up in the hospital, there was a tape in my camera, and that tape shows Alex and I going into that hospital, and then Alex hit me over the head with a pipe and left me for dead.”

Amy stares at them for a beat before launching straight into an incredulous rage.

“What?! No way. Look, I know Alex has been acting weird lately, but there is _no way_ he would actually _hurt_ someone! I mean...I...Do you even _know_ him?!”

_Tim, I’m going to kill you._

“Look, I wouldn’t believe it either if I didn’t see it on camera,” Brian says, trying to stop the storm Tim has set in motion, “But I promise it’s the truth. We have no idea why he would want to do something like that, but we’re trying to find out. Until then, we’re assuming he might still want to hurt us.”

“Brian, come on. Seriously. If this is some kind of joke, I swear to God it is _not_ funny.”

“Look, I understand why you don’t believe us, but trust me. Your boyfriend is involved in something dangerous, and it’s starting to affect all of us,” Tim says.

“And hopefully if we find out what it is and how Alex is involved, we can put a stop to it,” Brian cuts in, “Maybe we can help him. Denying what happened isn’t going to get us anywhere. This is our reality right now and we have to deal with it. Where’s that tape you got?”

“Right here,” Amy says, taking a small black tape out of her purse and handing it over to Brian. Anger is still set on her face, but at least she’s not yelling and waving her arms around anymore. He takes the camera from Tim and switches the current tape out with Alex’s. He rewinds it back to the beginning and gestures for Tim and Amy to gather around. Then, there in the parking lot on the camera’s tiny screen, they watch what happened two days ago.

Brian hopes and prays as the footage begins that it really is something innocent, but he knows as soon as he sees himself appear on camera that it won’t be. He doesn’t remember any of this happening, and no matter how hard he tries, he can’t relax as the video continues to play. Amy, by contrast, seems perfectly fine. She even seems a bit smug as she watches what to her is a perfectly normal day of shooting.

For four minutes they watch nothing but endless shots of weird B-roll that would be funny if Brian actually remembered shooting them. Amy actually laughs a few times.

“God, you guys are such dorks,” she says, but even she is starting to act a little unnerved, as if she’s expecting something bad to happen. Almost exactly 4 minutes and 15 seconds in, her fear is validated. Amy freezes and stares at the camera. Brian quickly hits pause, and the three of them stare at the frame.

“What...what is _that?_ ” Amy says, “Oh my God.”

She takes the camera and holds it closer to her face. Tim gives Brian a terrified look. It’s the same creature that was in Tim’s tape. Two instances of memory loss. Two visits with Alex to the abandoned hospital. Two times that thing has appeared.

_I don’t like this._

Amy hands the camera back to Brian.

“Is that it?” she asked, sounding slightly unimpressed, but Brian can tell she’s just trying to cover. He doesn’t blame her for not wanting to be wrong about this. He wished he was too.

“No, there’s still about two minutes left on the tape,” he says.

His stomach twists as he hits play again. The footage distorts, goes black, and then continues. Brian realizes as the tape continues that he knows those hallways. They were dark and hard to see between flashes of lightning, but those are the halls he walked through when he woke up in the hospital. One of those rooms has to be the one he was in. Brian feels like he should be shocked when Tim appears on the tape as well, but he’s not. At this point, he feels like nothing else can shock him.

When that thing appears again, Amy lets out a gasp and covers her mouth with her hands.

“Oh God,” she whispers, “Oh God, Brian….But what happened to…?”

And then Alex’s shoes walk into the frame.

“No. No, he...what was he…?”

After that Amy seems to stunned to speak. Brian doesn’t feel much better. No one says anything for the longest time. Questions fly through Brian’s mind, but he can’t answer any of them, so he lets them go and ignores them until all they are is static humming in his brain. Finally Amy speaks.

“Th-that was staged. You guys staged that just to freak me out!”

“Amy, I swear we didn’t,” Brian says, starting to lose his patience, but Amy’s stubborn refusal to believe them seems to be crumbling.

“Have either of you _talked_ to him about this?! And what the hell was that...that thing?!” she asks.

“I don’t think either of us want to risk him pulling something like _that_ again,” Tim says, jabbing his finger towards the camera.

“Pulling _what?_ How do you know that that weird guy in the suit isn’t responsible for this?”

“He _hit me_ with a _pipe!_ ” Tim snarls.

“Tim,” Brian says, giving his friend a look and grabbing his shoulder to try and bring him back down to Earth.

“Wait, so what now? If you guys aren’t going to confront him about it, then what? We just go on like it never happened?!” Amy asks.

“We’re going to try and find out why he would do something like this,” Brian says, “We know he has more tapes back home, and we know during filming he’s been carrying around a handheld camera for no real reason. It’s possible that one of the tapes he has will tell us why he’s doing this.”

“So, what, you’re just going to break in and steal from him? That doesn’t seem like a good idea to me,” she says.

“Not like we have any other choice,” Tim says.

“Guys, are you sure we can’t just _talk_ to him about this?” Amy asks.

Brian can see the desperation in her eyes, and he wishes he could give her some good news. Anything would be better than this.

“I wish we could, Amy, but it’s just not safe until we know more,” he says.

Amy struggles for a moment, as if she’s racking her brain, trying to come up with some kind of option that doesn’t involve running and stealing from her boyfriend.

“Well,” she finally says, “I guess there’s one thing we can do.”

“What?”

“We could go back to that hospital and see if there’s anything there.”

“No.”

“No way.”

“Definitely not.”

Amy sighs in frustration.

“Ok fine, whatever.”

She paces for a moment, running her hands through her hair.

“Oh God, I don’t know what to do,” she finally groans, slumping up against her car and wrapping her arms around herself. Brian walks over to her and puts his hands on her shoulders.

“Hey, it’s ok. We’re going to fix this,” he says, “We’re going to find out what’s going on, and we’re going to help him. Just breathe, ok?”

Amy sucks in a shaky breath and aggressively wipes angry tears from her eyes, as if disgusted by her own display of emotion.

“Ok,” she finally says, “Ok, just...tell me what to do for now. Until we have some kind of plan.”

“Just...act like everything’s fine. We’ll hang onto the tape and try to come up with a plan. We don’t think he’ll hurt you, but...I guess…”

“Don’t go running off into the woods with him,” Tim says.

“Once he’s out of town, I don’t think you’ll be in any danger,” Brian says.

“Did he tell you guys though?” Amy asks.

“Tell us what?”

“He’s moving here once he’s done shooting Marble Hornets. Oh God, guys if he’s, like, going crazy or something, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

“I don’t think he’s crazy,” Tim says, “I just think whatever has been happening to him has made him desperate. Somehow, hurting us is, in his mind, going to make things better.”

“Exactly,” Brian says, “So if we can remove whatever the source of all this stress is, then he’ll be back to normal. You’ll see. Everything is going to be fine.” 

* * *

 

So many thoughts are going through Amy’s head as she drives home. She can barely concentrate on the road. She feels blinded by each passing car, and the trees seem to loom over her, outlined by the dim, clouded sky.

_How could he do something like that?_

Her body moves subconsciously; each turn and lane change is done automatically. She doesn’t really think about where her body is taking her. Nothing in this town is familiar yet, so she could be going anywhere. Is she going home? Is she going to Kentucky? She doesn’t know, and in that moment she doesn’t care either.

_Why would he want to hurt anyone? Did Brian or Tim do something to him? How do I know I can trust them?_

She finds herself on a long stretch of highway. Her headlights try their best to illuminate the darkness, but ahead of her the road just seems like a gaping hole. Her heart hammers in her chest as she thinks about the strange, faceless man that was on the tape as well. Her skin crawls at the thought of it, just standing there unmoving in the background. And the way it just _appeared_ like that…

_It could be out there right now, watching me, and I wouldn’t know._

Her hands clamp down onto the steering wheel, and the next chance she gets she takes an exit ramp off of the highway. She can’t stare at that endless darkness anymore. She has to get back home. Where even is she? In the dark everything looks the same.

The road keeps stretching onward. She doesn’t recognize any of the street names, and she doesn’t see any buildings that look familiar. Sometimes she’ll see the distant lights of an isolated house, but surrounding every semblance of civilization are endless tracts of forest.

Amy tries to take a deep breath to calm herself, but she can’t. She can’t stop thinking about that thing in the trees. She can’t get that image of Alex dragging Brian off screen, as if the fact that his friend was clearly hurt didn’t bother him at all. As if _he_ was the one who might have hurt him. She can’t shake the feeling that something is watching her.

She slams on the brakes and pulls off onto the side of the road. Her hands won’t stop shaking. She turns the car off, and as the sound of the engine dies and the interior lights turn off, the world suddenly feels like a vacuum. The deep breaths she takes in an attempt to calm herself down sound like wind howling in the small space of her car. Her gut twists itself into knots until it feels like stones have replaced all her organs. Her eyes burn, and once that first tear hits her jeans, they don’t stop.

She tries to stop, but there’s not enough air in the universe to fill her stuttering lungs. She opens the door and gets out, hoping that the night air might help. She takes a deep breath, holds it for a second, and finally releases it. For a second she thinks she’s gotten control of herself again, but even the humid air feels dry on her throat, and instead of sobbing she begins to cough.

It starts out light and dry, but before she can even begin to comprehend what’s happening it’s turned into something deep and painful. She can feel it in her chest, echoing in her ribs, and she has to grab onto the car door to keep from doubling over. Her air is running out, but every time she tries to take a breath the coughing just gets worse. Her ears start to ring. There’s something on the other side of the road, just out of sight. Staring at her. Waiting.

The adrenaline hits her hard, and the next thing she knows twigs are whipping at her face as she sprints away into the trees.

* * *

 

_“You have,_ one,  _unheard message, sent,_ today,  _at,_ four forty-two am.  _”_

_Beep._

“A-Alex?...Oh God...Alex, I’m sorry for calling you so early, but I…” a shaky breath, “I don’t know where I am! I can’t remember how I got here either, but my car is just gone and I’m in this parking lot and…! I don’t even know if you’re still in town, but...can you please come get me? I don’t know who else to call. I think I’m at a park or something. _Ugh_ this is so frustrating! Babe, please, just call me back. I’m going to try and figure out where the hell I am. Love you.”

He expected to get a voicemail like this eventually. He knows what it does to you if it decides to let you go. He didn’t expect to get one from her though. No. Not her. Anyone but her.

Alex checks the time again. It’s been almost two hours since Amy called him. She could be anywhere by now, and there aren’t any other messages from her. He doesn’t need them though. There aren’t many parks in this area, so it shouldn’t take long to search them. He’ll search every last road if it means finding her in one piece.

A nagging voice in his head says he knows what should be done. He shouldn’t risk anything.

_But this is different. She’s not even involved in this._

He knows she took the tape. If she saw it, he can’t say that she’s not involved anymore.

_If she did, she won’t remember it. It hasn’t even been missing a whole day._

It came for her on its own, but it didn’t take her. What does that mean?

_Maybe it’ll leave her alone._

And maybe it won’t. He’s still alive after all.

He drives. From park to park for almost two hours, he drives. He calls Amy more times that he cares to count, but she never picks up. He doesn’t see any trace of her anywhere. No one has seen her. Finally, there’s only one place left to check. As he pulls into the parking lot, he regrets leaving the largest place for last. If she’s anywhere but the main area of the park, he’ll never find her. Not on his own, anyway.

As he walks towards the playground, he sees movement inside one of the picnic shelters. There’s a flash of blonde hair, and that’s all the invitation he needs to break out into a run.

“Amy?!”

She walks back into view, and then she’s running too. She crashes into him and crushes her face into his chest. She knocks the wind right out of him, but he doesn’t care.

“Oh God, oh my God,” she squeaks, “I wasn’t even sure if you got my message, and then my phone died…”

“Are you alright?” he asks, taking a step back so he can look at her, “You’re not hurt?”

“No, no, I’m fine.”

She doesn’t look fine to him. She’s a complete wreck. There’s mud on her jeans, especially on her knees and around her ankles. Dirt is ground into her palms and under her nails. Tiny scratches run across her arms, and her eyes are red and puffy. He pulls her into a hug again when he sees how badly she’s shaking.

“What the hell happened to you?” he asks, “How did you get out here?”

“I don’t know,” she sobs, “I don’t know, I can’t remember. I can’t remember _anything._ ”

“Shh. It’s ok. Just take a deep breath. How far back can you remember? Do you remember coming to my hotel room?”

“What…? No. No, I...I don’t remember that at all.”

“We got coffee downtown before that.”

“No. Alex, I swear if you’re fucking with me-.”

“I think we should get you to the hospital.”

“No, I’m fine-.”

“No, you’re not. Come on, let’s get out of here.”

She looks so small and fragile in the passenger’s seat of his car. So lost and scared. Her usual vibrance has been sucked right out of her. It’s an Amy he doesn’t see often. He knows he can’t deny what happened. He knows what he _should_ do, but…

He can’t look at her anymore. He stares ahead at the park as he backs out of the parking lot. He doesn’t like the way his heart is pounding or the way his hands are sweating. He’s not used to feeling this conflicted. He hasn’t let himself feel much of anything lately.

Staring at the road ahead, he thinks for a moment he might be able to steel himself just long enough. Just long enough to-

“Alex?”

“Hm?”

“Thank you.”

Every cold, heartless thought or feeling inside him shatters and disappears.

_I can’t._

Not to her. Never to her.

Amy seems to be getting a little better as they pull up in front of the hospital. He parks the car and looks at her, still dirty and shivering, but with a little more color in her cheeks than before and a little more spark in her eyes.

“Hey,” he says, “You’re going to be alright. We’re going to figure this out, ok?”

“Yeah. I know,” she says. She smiles, “You always take such good care of me.”

He can’t bring himself to smile back.

It takes forever for them to get seen, but they take it as a good sign. Sure enough, the doctors clear her. Nothing’s wrong with her other than her missing memories and mild hypothermia. A nurse pulls Alex aside to ask if she has a history of this sort of thing. He says she doesn’t. The nurse suggests scheduling an appointment with Amy’s general practitioner to find the cause of her episode. Alex promises that they’ll do that. Finally they let them go, and Alex takes her back to her dorm.

The other girls on her floor go into hysterics when they see the state she’s in. They immediately start badgering her with questions, but she just waves them off and says she’s tired. One or two try to press, but a glare from Alex shuts them up. He hears them whispering as they go into Amy’s room. While Alex plugs her phone in, she changes out of her damp and muddy clothes. Before long she’s tucked into her bed and fast asleep.

Alex glances at her phone. Something else is bothering him. The tape she took wasn’t with her when he found her, so either she lost it in the woods, or…

He turns it on and checks her call history. One name stands out. It’s all he needs to piece together what happened. He leaves a note for Amy, promising to help her find her car once she’s had some rest, and then he leaves. He takes his own phone out of his pocket once he’s back inside his own car. He stares at the mud still in his passenger seat as he punches in Brian’s number. The phone rings, but as he suspects no one picks up, and it goes to voicemail.

“If you ever go near Amy again, I will kill you. If you’re the one she gave that tape to, then you know I’m not kidding, Brian. You’re dealing with things you don’t understand. This all had to happen, but it never had to happen to _her!_ You dragged her into this! Not me! And if I ever hear that you’ve come anywhere near her - if I so much as see one of your footprints - I will hunt you down, and this time I’ll make sure to finish what I started. You won't be walking away next time.”

  
  
  



	5. Press Play

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the last of the chapters I already had written. The update schedule is probably going to be more spread out from here on out, but I am going to try and update at least once every two weeks. I'll let you guys know if it'll be longer. Thanks to everyone who has left kudos and reblogged this on tumblr. :) Enjoy!

It’s dark when they finally arrive home and turn onto Brian’s street. Two days of driving and trying to avoid Alex has worn thin on both Brian and Tim’s nerves, leaving them both tired and restless. Brian allows himself to feel the tiniest bit of relief upon seeing the familiar buildings and streets of his neighborhood, but he knows he can’t start getting comfortable just yet. Brian parks his car along the side of the road a reasonable distance away from his house, hoping not to alert anyone to the fact that he’s home again. As if that would really deter Alex from breaking into his house anyway.

“Are you sure coming here is a good idea?” Tim asks as they get out of the car, “Isn’t this exactly where Alex would expect us to go? We don’t know when he left town. He could be in there waiting for us.”

“There are two of us, and as far as we know he’s unarmed. Even if he does ambush us, he isn’t going to get far,” Brian says. 

He knows Alex. Malicious intentions or not, Alex is still the same dramatic nerd Brian has always known. Brian was rattled at first by Alex’s strange actions and his threatening voicemail, but he doesn’t feel any of that fear now. This is his home turf, and after a few days of ruminating on their situation, he knows he can handle whatever Alex decides to throw at them. His actions won’t be hard to predict, and now that they know what he wants, he won’t have the element of surprise anymore. They just need to be careful not to do anything stupid that might give Alex an advantage. 

Brian’s house looms above the driveway as they approach it, the details of its windows and siding just visible in the dim moonlight. It looks the same as it always does, but somehow it doesn’t feel like the same house. What is usually inviting and safe now seems sinister and alien. The shadows look darker, and the trees seem taller. Tim is visibly on edge and seems ready to fight anything that might come springing out of the bushes. Brian starts to walk up to the front door, but he stops. 

“Let’s go around back,” he says. 

Tim doesn’t say anything. He merely nods and follows. They go past the front door and skirt around the edge of the house to the sliding glass door on the other side. Brian fumbles with his keys in the dark before finally finding the right one and unlocking the door. He slides it open and pushes aside the blinds. Trying his best not to make a sound, he steps inside and begins walking towards the wall with the light switch. He hears Tim close the door behind them. Brian can feel his hands shaking as he runs his fingertips along the wall, his body betraying him despite his confidence. Finally his hand bumps against the switch and he flicks the living room lights on. 

Nothing looks disturbed. All the furniture, textbooks, and assorted junk scattered throughout the room are still in their proper places as far as Brian can remember. He looks down the hall and sees no sign of disturbance there either. He looks at Tim and gestures for him to check out the other rooms downstairs. Tim nods and heads for the kitchen while Brian makes his way towards the stairs. 

He turns the hall light on and pauses at the bottom of the staircase. He briefly wonders if he should grab something to use as a weapon before going up, but there’s nothing around he could wield easily. His fists will have to do. He makes his way up, placing his feet in all the places he knows won’t creak or shift under his weight. When he reaches the top, he presses his back to the wall and listens for the slightest sign that someone else might be here. Hearing nothing, he proceeds into the nearest room. 

Room after room is undisturbed, and thankfully a search of all places big enough to hide a human turn up empty. Brian releases a deep breath and finally relaxes. At least his home is still sacred. No telling how long that will last though. 

_ Maybe I’m just being paranoid,  _ he thinks as he heads back downstairs,  _ Alex is an asshole, but he’s never done anything like this in his life. Why am I treating him like he’s an actual threat? Sure he was clever trying to isolate Tim and I before taking us out, but his follow through was too sloppy. If he really wants us dead, he’s going to have to try a lot harder.  _

“Find anything?” Brian calls as he reaches the bottom of the stairs. 

“Nope. No sign of him,” Tim says, coming back into the living room.

Brian walks into the living room and sits down on the couch. Tim perches on the arm of one of the chairs, hands in his pockets. The way his back curves when he slouches reminds Brian of a vulture, waiting patiently to be thrown a bone. He’s looking at Brian with a question in his eyes: “ _ So what now?” _

“I suppose we should make sure he’s not in your apartment either,” Brian says. 

“Yeah, but not tonight,” Tim says, “It’s late, and I doubt he would go through the trouble to break into my place. It’s on the second floor, and someone would be bound to notice him trying to pick the lock.” 

“Fair enough.”

“Anyway, it’s probably best if we stick together for the time being. It’ll be harder for him to get the drop on us.”

“Makes sense.”

Brian yawns. 

“I’m so tired,” he says, getting up, “I’m going to bed. Spare room is all yours. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“G’night. Don’t let the Kralies bite,” Tim says in a deadpan tone. 

Brian laughs. 

 

At first Tim thinks he’s dreaming. His body still feels heavy and stiff, dragged down under the waves of light and fitful sleep. As his brain starts to reboot, he becomes aware of how disconnected he feels from himself, and he wonders if he tried to move if his limbs would obey him. Maybe this is another one of those nightmares where he’s paralyzed and can’t fight against whatever demons decide to torment him this time. If he opens his eyes, will he see that monster hovering over him again? He’s still debating with himself when he hears a muffled thump.

Tim opens his eyes. A deep breath draws life back into his icy body and his joints protest as his sits up and stretches. He’s not sure what time it is. It feels like he’s only been sleeping a few minutes, but for all he knows it could have been hours. A glance out the window offers no clues. It’s as dark outside as when they arrived. 

Tim listens for the sound to happen again, but it doesn’t. The house is completely silent. He contemplates going back to sleep, but his paranoia won’t allow him to relax until he knows for sure that nothing is going to jump out and stab him in his sleep. He gets up and treads lightly across the floor to the door. He doesn’t see anything in the hall, so he opens the door all the way and looks around. He walks over to Brian’s door and peers inside.

“Brian?” he whispers. 

He doesn’t hear a reply. He pushes the door open all the way. The shades are drawn and only let in a small sliver of light that cuts across Brian’s bed. The sheets have been thrown off and Brian is gone. Tim feels a jolt of fear. Could Alex really have caught up with them so quickly? He glances around the room for something he can use to defend himself and spots a heavy looking book. He grabs it and leaves to check the other rooms upstairs, but Brian isn’t in any of those rooms either. 

Tim looks down the staircase, listening for movement. He starts thinking about that thump again. Could that have been fighting? Why is it quiet now? He descends, wincing at every creak in the wood under his feet. By the time he reaches the bottom, his heart is racing. If Alex is here, he’s surely heard him by now. Holding the book ready to swing, Tim walks towards the living room.

He sees a shadow on the floor of a figure, framed in a wide square of moonlight. He stops and presses his back into the wall. He looks around the corner and breathes a sigh of relief when he realizes it’s just Brian, standing completely still in front of the sliding glass door. There’s no Alex, no fighting. Just his friend. Thank God. Tim sets the book down in a chair and approaches Brian. 

“Jeez, you scared me,” he says. 

Brian doesn’t say anything. 

“Brian? You, uh...you ok, buddy?” 

Brian murmurs something, but it’s too low and slurred for Tim to make it out. Tim walks up next to him and gingerly puts his hand on his shoulder. 

“Brian? What is it?”

He looks out the window in the yard. It’s too dark to see very far, and he can’t make out anything beyond the small swath of grass behind the house. He looks back at Brian and steps in front of him. Brian’s eyes are closed, and he seems completely unaware of Tim’s presence. 

“Hey. Brian, are you even awake right now?”

“Don’t,” Brian murmurs. 

Tim sighs. He gives Brian a nudge, trying to turn him away from the window and back towards the stairs. 

“Come on,” he says. 

Brian grumbles something, but doesn’t resist. Tim manages to guide him back up the stairs and into his room without him tripping. It’s unnerving to see him like this, reacting and moving as if he were awake, and yet, it’s as something else is piloting his body. Tim feels certain that Brian can’t hear him right now. For all he knows Brian could be walking through an entirely different world in his sleep.

When they get back to Brian’s room, Brian gets back into bed without any help or protest. He rolls over and settles back down again. He seems so small, an observation that startles Tim a bit. He’s so used to Brian always looking cheery and confident, eyes twinkling with some joke that he hasn’t told yet. In his sleep, Brian seems so vulnerable, and...almost sad. Tim releases a deep breath and turns to go back to the guest room. 

“Tim.”

Tim jumps and turns to look back at Brian who suddenly sounds far more awake than he had before. 

“Yeah?” Tim asks. 

“It was there,” Brian murmurs. 

“What was?”

But he doesn’t get an answer. Brian drifts back to sleep, and Tim returns to his room. He tries to forget about what Brian said. He could have been talking about anything, but Tim knows that isn’t true. He knows what Brian was talking about, and as he tries to go back to sleep his wishes more than anything that he didn’t.

* * *

 

 

They have two or three hours if they’re lucky. It’s an unnecessarily long window of time in which to commit a relatively quick robbery, but paranoia doesn’t allow them to take any chances. Alex’s unreliable schedule was difficult to figure out, and even after several weeks of watching for an opportunity, neither Brian nor Tim know for sure how long Alex will be gone. Sometimes he’s gone for hours on end, but other times he’s gone and back within fifteen minutes.

“And you’re absolutely sure we’re going to have enough time,” Tim says. 

“We’re not going to have any time at all if I can’t get this door open,” Brian mutters, trying ever so carefully to pick the front door lock. He practiced it a few times before they left, but now he’s beginning to wish he did it a few more. Just as he’s starting to think that they should abandon ship now before the neighbors call the police, he feels the tumblers start clicking into place. The door swings open and they enter a whole new territory. 

Brian has never known Alex to be this messy. Even when he lived in the dorms at school, where things are difficult to keep clean for long, Alex always had everything organized. Neat and precise, just like everything he did, and all with a little creative flair. The scene Brian sees in his house now is just chaos. Boxes packed and unpacked, shoved into corners and stacked into precarious towers. Dishes washed and then left out of their cupboards. Dishes unwashed and left on the coffee table. Books lying open with their pages facing down, yet with bookmarks sitting near them, unused. There’s a vacuum sitting out, still plugged in. Things unfinished. Daily life interrupted. For a moment, Brian feels sad before snapping his mind back to the task at hand. 

Tim scoffs. 

“Someone’s busy.”

“Looks like a hurricane went through here,” Brian says, “Come on, let’s check the office.”

The office is marginally cleaner, but not by much. Books in the shelf topple over and fall flat in the shelf from too much space, and stacks of books on the ground stand high enough to fill those empty spaces, but their owner doesn’t seem to care. The desk also has dishes sitting on it, and pieces of crumpled paper, pens, and other random items make it difficult to see the surface they’re resting on. The desk chair has been rolled over to the window, too far from the desk to be useful. Tim and Brian notice none of these things first, however. They’re too busy staring at the pages. 

The floor has been turned white by the sheer number of them. Each has something different on it, but viewed as a whole it becomes a blur of Xs, Os, sketchy trees, and words written in block letters with a frantic, shaking hand. No matter how many Brian reads from where he stands in the doorway, he can’t absorb what any of them say. 

Tim lets out a low whistle. 

“Wow,” he says. 

Brian skirts around the edge of the pile, not sure what to think of all this. 

“Don’t mess any of them up,” he finally says, “We don’t want Alex to think anything is wrong.” 

“Hey Brian?”

“Yeah?”

“Did Alex ever have any...I don’t know, like...disorders, or…?”

Brian pauses a moment and thinks.

“No,” he says after a minute, “No, I don’t think so. Whatever this is, it’s…”

_ New.  _

Brian takes a breath and crouches down by the desk. He opens the drawers, carefully shuffling around papers and office supplies in his hunt for information. He finds a package of tapes, but it’s unopened. Nothing of interest. He finishes his search and walks back into the hall. He motions for Tim to head for the bedroom. That room is in a similar state of disarray. Looking under the bed and in the chest of drawers turns up nothing. Then Tim slides open the closet door, and they find what they’re looking for. 

“That’s a lot of tapes,” Tim says. 

They aren’t even in any sort of box or bag. They’re all just stacked up against the wall. Some of them have fallen into small piles around the edges. 

“Where d’ya think we should start?” Tim asks. He crouches down and examines one, “It doesn’t look like any of them are labeled.”

Brian thinks back to the last student project Alex put together. He was always careful to label his tapes. Otherwise it was impossible to tell what scenes were on them. It was just common sense, but the blank labels on these tapes haven’t been touched in the slightest. Just another half-finished chore left behind. 

“We’re going to need some kind of system so we know which ones we’ve taken already,” Brian says, “And I think…”

He trails off and exits the bedroom. A moment later he returns with a black pen. 

“If we make a tiny mark on the edges of these labels, we ought to know if it’s one we watched. Alex probably won’t notice if we make it small enough,” he says, sitting down next to Tim and taking the tape from him. He pops the case open, makes a tiny slash mark in the corner of the label, and pockets the tape. 

“Go ahead and grab another one. There are more here than I thought. We can probably get away with two,” he says. 

He repeats the process for the second tape. 

“Ok, let’s get out of here.”   
They stand and walk back out into the living room. That’s when Brian notices the camera. It’s sitting on a tripod among the junk, and it’s point straight at the front door. For a moment Brian thinks it might be off, but then he notices the recording light blinking. This whole escapade has been captured on film. Brian sighs in frustration.

_ Alex, you paranoid bastard.  _

“You keep going,” Brian says, walking towards the camera. 

“What is it? Shit,” Tim says, answering his own question when he notices the camera as well. 

“I’m going to rewind the tape,” Brian says, picking his way past boxes to get behind the tripod. 

“Is that the only camera?” Tim asks. 

“I’m not sure,” Brian says. 

He doesn’t even have to ask. Tim is already going back to the bedroom and office to make sure there aren’t any cameras they failed to notice. Brian stops the recording and starts running the tape back. He’s tempted to watch what’s on this tape, but decides against it. It wouldn’t be wise to take a tape Alex is actively using. 

“I think that’s the only one,” Tim says as he reemerges from the bedroom. 

“Go out the back,” Brian says, “I’ll be there in a second.”

Tim nods and Brian waits until he hears the back door shut. Then he stops the tape and lets it resume recording the living room. As he removes his hands from the camera, his breath catches in his throat. He creeps towards the back door, and every footfall, as quiet as it is, sounds like a bomb dropping to him. Tim has left the back door propped open a tiny bit, and while that helps cut down on the noise Brian makes as he leaves the house, he still fears that the camera will pick up the squeak of the hinges or the click of the lock settling back into its place. As soon as they’re clear, he and Tim make a run for it back into the wide expanse of the suburban neighborhood, praying that this first mission won’t be their last.

 

Somewhere in Brian’s house a phone is ringing, and somewhere on the other end of the line is a man with dark circles under his eyes and dirt under his fingernails. He’s stumbled through these past few weeks, alone and confused, but not anymore. As of yet, he has only seen the shadows on the cave wall. The things that cast them are still just beyond his sight, yet his mind has never felt so clear. He needs to know more. He  _ needs  _ to. For so long he felt lost and purposeless, and no goal he set ever felt right, but this? This feels like a calling. A sign from God. It feels as if some great flood has washed through him, cleansing him of all his former desires and motivations. In the darkness a faceless monster whispers to him. He must be the one to unlock its mysteries. He’s the only one who can. 

But first, there is business to take care of. He is but an eye, a lense which observes and cataloges all it has seen. He can watch and wonder and infer all he pleases, but it takes hands to shift the variables. It takes legs to chase down leads. He knows he can’t do this by himself. Luckily for him, there are already two more who desire the same thing he does, and it’s unlikely that either would turn on him as Alex has. 

_ We can all be free. We just have to be patient. _

The phone continues to ring.

“Hey, it’s Brian. You should probably just text me. I’ll get back to you way faster. But if you want to, leave me a message after the beep.”

“Brian. It’s Seth. We need to meet. Come to the red tower. You know the one. Bring Tim too. Tomorrow at 7 pm. Bye.”


	6. War Rooms

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seth finally comes out of the woodwork.

It’s raining when Tim and Brian arrive at the park. There’s no one around save for some wet birds flying away to find shelter. Brian kills the engine, and for a moment there’s nothing but silence and the sound of raindrops hitting the windows. Already it’s gotten dark, and the street looks like a mirror under the dim yellow lights. Beyond the parking lot is a black void illuminated only by a few distant lights that disappear the further into the park one looks.

“I still can’t figure why it’s taken him so long to make contact. I mean, you must have left him a dozen voicemails,” Tim says.

“I’m just glad he’s not dead,” Brian says, opening the door and stepping out. Tim’s concerns have already occurred to him, and while he understands the need to be cautious, his relief that Alex didn’t get to Seth overpowers his fear. 

“We know where we’re going, right?” Tim asks as he follows Brian out into the downpour. 

“I think so. You never filmed out there, but I think the tower Seth is talking about was on one of Alex’s sets.”

“How far is it?”

“It’s a bit of a walk.”

“Of course it is.”

Brian just hopes that he can find it in the darkness. Otherwise the already long walk is going to take them all night. He switches on the flashlight he brought and looks over at Tim. 

“You brought the camera, right?”

“Yeah,” Tim says, taking the device out of his pocket and switching it on. The red recording light blinks slowly as Tim focuses the camera on the path ahead. After a moment he switches on the night vision and points the camera at Brian. 

“So are you expecting something bad to happen?” he asks, “I mean, we haven’t even been taking this with us to Alex’s house.”

Brian isn’t sure how to answer that question. He isn’t expecting Seth to do anything crazy. It’s just Seth after all. At the same time, however, he seemed off in his voicemail. More blunt and hurried. He didn’t sound scared necessarily, but definitely preoccupied. That combined with the strange meeting place, the time of day, and what happened last time they wandered into the woods at night in a rainstorm, Brian feels getting whatever happens on tape could be valuable. 

“If anything bad happens, I don’t think it’ll come from Seth,” he finally says, “Plus, whatever he has to say sounded important. I want to make sure we get a record of it.”

Tim points the camera back down the path and takes a breath. 

“Hopefully we won’t need it.”

 

They almost lose the tower in the rain. The drizzle that greeted them upon their arrival is now a downpour, and Tim and Brian run from tree to tree, trying to keep out of the worst of it. The flashlight is nearly useless as the beam bounces off each drop that streaks past them, scattering the light and blocking it from going farther than a few feet. Brian feels certain that they’re close, but at the same time he’s not sure how much he can trust his judgement. 

“Please tell me we’re not lost,” Tim says, shivering in his jacket that is not tough enough to withstand a drenching of this magnitude. Brian feels a little guilty that he didn’t offer to lend him a raincoat or something, but then again neither of them anticipated that it would get this bad. 

“We’re close,” Brian says, “I think.”

He advances forward towards what he thinks is a field. He remembers the tower being on the other side of one, hidden among the trees. He just hopes it’s the right field. 

“Hey, what is that?” Tim asks. 

He points off to the side at something in the distance. At first Brian isn’t sure what he’s talking about, but then he sees the small dot of white light flashing across the field, sweeping through the darkness like a searchlight. 

“Ready to run for it?” Brian asks. 

Tim nods. Brian grabs onto his hand and they make a break for it towards the light. The soft ground squelches under their feet and the rain whips at their faces. Brian can feel water running down his neck and soaking his shirt, sapping what little warmth he had left in his body. His limbs start to feel heavy with exhaustion as his body tries desperately to generate heat faster than the rain can whisk it away. Gradually the light gets closer and closer. The tower appears out of nowhere, it seems. One minute all they have is their beacon and the blackness around them, and the next the red giant is there, towering over them and promising shelter from the storm. 

“Seth?!” Brian calls. 

He sees the beam of another flashlight cut across the trees nearby before turning on them. Brian lowers his own flashlight and lifts his hand up to shield his eyes. 

“Brian! Come inside!” Seth calls over the roar of the rain. Then the flashlight beam turns away and disappears. Brian and Tim go around the tower to a tiny doorway cut out in its side, and as soon as they step inside the feeling of water hammering against them disappears. Some drops still get through and turn into a fine mist as they hit the walls, turning the small space into more of an icy greenhouse than a shelter, but it’s still preferable to the flood outside.

Seth stands near one corner, shoulders hunched with his hand in his pockets. He looks nervous and uncomfortable, but at the same time there’s a look in his eye that Brian has never seen in him before. His face is gaunt, and dark circles ring his eyes. What scruff he is capable of growing covers his chin, and his mouth is set in a grim scowl. There’s something predatory in his eyes as he sizes them up, like a feral dog deciding whether or not the people before him are a threat. Brian squares his shoulders and looks him in the eye, not one to be intimidated, when he reminds himself that this is Seth they’re talking about.

_ Not that my track record for character judgement has been flawless lately.  _

“I kinda didn’t expect you guys to show,” Seth says, and with that the hungry look Brian had seen disappears, leaving behind the Seth Brian knows. Quiet and scatterbrained, but friendly, and Brian wonders if perhaps the bad lighting was playing tricks on him. 

“You’re lucky neither of us are witches,” Brian says. 

Seth doesn’t seem to get the joke. Tim does though, and he rolls his eyes. Brian quickly changes the subject. 

“So what’s so important that we had to meet all the way out here? What happened?” he asks, wrapping his arms around his torso in a futile effort to keep from shivering. 

“I wanted to make sure you wouldn’t be followed,” Seth says. His eyes dart from the doorway to the walls around them, as if even they can’t be trusted to keep a secret. 

Brian frowns. 

“I guess Alex came after you too, then,” he says. 

Seth doesn’t say anything, but he doesn’t have to. The look of fear in his eyes is enough to confirm Brian’s suspicions. Tim heaves an angry sigh. 

“Something needs to be done about him. There are three of us now. That’s more than enough to take him,” he says.

Brian gives him a look. 

“Tim, we’ve been over this. I know you don’t like him, but he’s still a friend, and if there’s a chance that-.”

“That if he can be saved we should take it?” Tim finishes, “Brian, when someone is trying to kill you, generally you don’t think of their life as the one that needs saving.”

Brian huffs, but he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t want to start an argument right now. Thankfully, Tim doesn’t press the issue any further. He turns back to Seth, “What did you want to tell us?”

Seth takes a deep breath. 

“So Alex attacked you two as well?”

“Yeah,” Brian says. 

“Was that creature there with him?”

“I…” Brian stops and looks at Tim, who seems a bit paler than before, before looking back at Seth, “We can’t remember. We have tapes of what happened though. Are you talking about that guy in the suit?”

“Yeah,” Seth murmurs, “That thing. It needs a better name than that.”

“I don’t care what it’s called as long as it stays as far away from us as possible,” Tim remarks. 

“So...your memories didn’t come back?” Seth asks, ignoring Tim. 

“Were they supposed to?” Brian asks. 

“Well mine...I don’t know. I can recall more than I could before. There are still pieces missing, but I feel like it’s coming back,” Seth says, “That hasn’t happened to you?”

“No,” Brian says, “Sure wish it did though.”

“Weird,” Seth says, “Maybe it’s taking longer for you,” but he doesn’t look entirely convinced. He takes a breath to clear his head. 

“Look,” he says, “Whatever is going on with Alex, I think it has something to do with that creature. It’s doing something to him. I’m just not sure what exactly. I know it wiped our memories. It sounds like it was there when all of us were attacked. It’s not a coincidence.”

“So you’re sure it’s real, then,” Tim says, “It’s not just...like a hallucination or something.”

“I wish that was it, but there’s no other explanation. I’ve seen it. I  _ remember  _ it,” Seth says.

“You know you can’t always trust what you see,” Tim says. 

“That might be the case if only one of us saw it, but all of us did, and it’s turned up on film again and again. It’s real, and it’s coming for all of us.”

“Again and again?” Brian asks. 

“Do you remember how I kept getting sick after we finished up shoots for Marble Hornets?” Seth asks, “It always happened when I was going through footage.  I saw it on the tapes more than once. I told myself it was just a glitch because there was no way something like that could be real, but I was wrong. Brian, this thing was after us long before now.”

“Do you have a plan?” Brian asks. 

“Figure out how it works. We need to know what it does if we’re going to fight it.”

“I’m a little more concerned about Alex right now,” Tim says, “As far as we know this thing can’t actually hurt us beyond giving us amnesia and the flu, but Alex knows we’re not dead, and I’m a little bit worried about what he might do if he decides to take matters into his own hands.”

“But if that thing is controlling him-.”

“Then what are we going to do, kill it? How are you supposed to kill a thing like that? Let’s just deal with the devil we know,” Tim says, cutting him off, “He’s the most immediate threat anyway.”

Seth shoots Tim a dirty look, but he doesn’t argue. 

“Fine. We’ll do it your way. Do you have a plan?”

“Well I know what we’re  _ not  _ going to do,” Brian says, “If Alex is being controlled by this thing, then we definitely can’t kill him.”

“And how do we know he’s not just a dick?” Tim asks, “If Seth is right and this thing has been after us from the start, how come none of us have started attacking each other by now?”

“I don’t know, but we should find out before we do anything else,” Brian says. 

“I might have an idea about that,” Seth says, “But it’s kind of risky.”

“Well we’re no strangers to that,” Brian says, “We’re listening.”

* * *

 

 

The wet smell of boiling water and cooked pasta wafts through Brian’s small kitchen, mingling with the scent of rain coming in through one of the open windows. One of the kitchen lights is buzzing again, but Brian is too busy listening to Tim carry on about Seth and their little rendezvous in the woods to mind. Brian knows he should be taking this seriously, but he finds it difficult when Tim starts ranting directly into the pot of noodles. 

“He’s going to get himself killed,” Tim says, stirring the water more times than is entirely necessary, “He won’t even get to explain himself. Alex is just going to off him right there.”

“I’m sure Seth will be happy to know that you care so much,” Brian says. 

Tim looks over at him and stops stirring. 

“You seem awfully nonchalant about all this.” 

“And I think you need to try and relax. We’ve already been over this. Seth knows what he’s doing. He’ll be fine.” 

“When does Seth ever know what he's doing?”

“More often than you realize. He's not stupid.”

“Maybe, but he’s not going to last two seconds if it comes to a fight.”

“Your opinion has been noted, Tim.”

Tim shoots him a glare, but he doesn’t say anything else. Brian is grateful. He knows where Tim is coming from, honestly, but he’s exhausted and Tim’s constant worrying isn’t doing anything for either of them except giving Brian a headache. The timer on the microwave goes off, and Tim starts moving the pasta noodles to the strainer. He finds a jar of sauce in one of the cupboards and pours what he thinks is probably enough into the pot. Soon he has two bowls of spaghetti which he sets down on Brian’s tiny kitchen table. 

“Congrats on not burning it,” Brian says. 

“You don’t give me enough credit,” Tim replies. 

“How much progress have you made with your tape?” 

“I’m almost done. It’s kind of a bore, honestly. It’s just Alex filming himself doing normal, everyday stuff.”

“Yeah, mine’s pretty much the same. The only interesting thing I found on it was a clip of him running around the house and looking out the windows,” Brian says, “I think that...that thing was following him. He seemed really scared.”

“Sure doesn’t seem that scared anymore,” Tim mutters, taking another bite of his food. He gets a far away look in his eyes, as if dredging up a memory he hasn’t thought about in a long time. Brian briefly considers asking him what’s up, but as soon as the look appears, it vanishes, and Tim once again becomes absorbed in his dinner. Brian lets it go for the time being. If there’s something he needs to know, he knows Tim will tell him.

“So I guess tomorrow finish your tape, and we can head back for a new set,” Brian says, “Seth said he’d be talking to Alex tomorrow anyway, so it’s a good opportunity to go in. He might even take his ‘surveillance camera’ with him.”

“Yeah, what are we going to do about that? He’s not going to take it with him every time, and eventually he’s going to notice if we keep tampering with the tapes,” Tim says. 

“If things go our way, it won’t matter. He’ll have other things to worry about.”

* * *

 

 

“You have reached the voicemail of Alex Kralie. I’m probably away from my phone right now. Leave me a message and I’ll get back to you.” 

Seth heaves a sigh. He shouldn’t have expected this to work, but he’s come this far. 

“Hey, Alex, it’s...uh, it’s Seth. I really need your help right now, man, and I know I’m probably the last person you want to talk to but...I know you were the last person I talked to before...um, and, well, it’s kind of hard to explain everything over the phone but, I was hoping you knew what happened, and...I don’t know. Just call me back, please,” he says. 

He snaps his phone shut and sets it down on the coffee table. He sits back in his chair and takes a deep breath. His hands are shaking, and the room feels at least ten degrees colder than it was before. 

_ What am I doing? He’s going to try and kill me. I  _ know  _ that’s what he wants.  _

His thoughts begin to race in a million different directions, and he feels as if he’s made a terrible mistake. He could have just disappeared and forgotten about all of this, but now it’s too late to turn back. He stands up and walks around the room in tight circles, taking deep breaths and trying to shake off the gnawing panic currently twisting through his gut. It’s almost entirely ineffective. 

_ Even if he doesn’t, what happens if he figures out that I’m lying? What if he decides to kill me right on the spot? What if he  _ doesn’t  _ decide to kill me and something worse happens? _

He leaves his small living room and heads for the kitchen to get some water. He’s still wearing his clothes from last night, and though they dried out a while ago, he still feels grimy and disheveled. He’s sure he looks even worse. There’s a deep ache in his bones from exhaustion that refuses to leave him, and there’s a fog in his brain that makes everything seem out of focus. He’s been avoiding mirrors the past few days. He’s sure the dark circles under his eyes are horrendous, but he doesn’t want to see them. He doesn’t want to acknowledge just how far his life has spiraled out of control within the span of just a month. 

_ I need to stop thinking about this. There’s no going back now. I  _ have  _ to do this. There’s no other way. I just have to suck it up.  _

He gets a glass out of one of the cabinets. The tap squeaks as he begins filling the glass with water. His legs still refuse to stop trembling, and once the glass is full, he chugs its contents as if doing so will give him the courage he so desperately needs right now. He puts down the glass as a cough forces its way out of his lungs. For once, the fit subsides quickly. He stops to refill the glass, but before he can even touch the faucet, he hears buzzing coming from the living room. 

He sets the glass down and walks back over to the coffee table. He hovers over his vibrating phone for a moment, wondering if maybe he can just let it go to voicemail even though he knows that would be completely counterproductive. Maybe it’s not even Alex. Maybe it’s just Brian or even a wrong number. He tells himself this until he feels convinced that answering the phone won’t kill him, but even so, he still picks it up as if he were handling a sleeping viper. He flips the phone open and answers the call. 

“H-hello?”

“Seth? It’s me, Alex.” 

“Um, uh, hey, Alex. I didn’t expect you to call me back so quickly.” 

“I’ve been screening my calls.” 

“Right, ah...so, listen, you probably aren’t going to believe me, but-.”

“It’s ok, I know what happened.” 

“Wait you...you do?”

“Yeah, it happened to me too. Where are you right now?”

Seth opens his mouth to speak, but the words catch in his throat.

_ No. No no no, I can’t. He’ll come after me. I can’t tell him I’m alone. I’ll...I’ll tell him I’m at the store. Wait, no, what if he’s watching me? What if he catches me? If he does then I’m screwed. He wouldn’t try to kill me in my own house, would he? He wouldn’t dare, right? Oh my God.  _

“Seth?”

“Um, I’m at home.”

“So you’re back in town?”

“Yeah.”

“Ok. I can’t explain everything over the phone. Meet me at the park near my house tomorrow. Come to the gazebo. We’ll talk then.” 

“Um, ok, but Alex-.”

Seth hears a click, and then there’s nothing but dead air on the other end of the line. 

_ The bastard hung up on me.  _

He takes the phone away from his ear and flips it shut. For a moment he’s not sure what to think or what to do. The only thing he feels is a complete absence of feeling as everything sinks in. He takes a breath. He sets his phone back down on the table. He wonders if he should call Brian and tell him that he’s made contact with Alex, but he decides not to. They have their job, and he has his. No sense in updating him until he has something to report. With nothing left to do until morning, he flops onto the couch and shuts his eyes, and for what feels like the first time in weeks, he drifts off to sleep with ease.

* * *

 

 

Alex is carrying a camera. Seth recognizes it as the handheld he carries around on set, still finding use even though Marble Hornets is now a thing of the past. Seth stands as his former friend approaches him, and he fights the urge to take off across the boardwalk and forget this whole meeting. He expects Alex to snap at him or ask him a condescending question, but he doesn’t. Today Alex’s shoulders are relaxed, and he walks with confidence. Though Seth can see the camera is recording, Alex points it at the ground and doesn’t bother to keep it focused on anything in particular. Clearly he expects nothing important to come of today, and Seth isn’t sure if he should be relieved or offended. 

“Walk with me,” Alex says. He doesn’t wait for Seth’s reply. Even before he finishes his sentence, he’s walking out of the gazebo to the boardwalks. Seth hurries to catch up. 

“Tell me what you remember,” Alex says. 

“Uh, not much,” Seth says. 

“Just try.” 

“Ok, well...I remember heading across the state with you, but...I don’t know. I don’t really remember arriving in town. Next thing I know I’m out in the woods, and a whole week has passed. I don’t remember anything else.” 

“Are you sure?”

“I’ve tried to remember more, but I can’t,” Seth says, “What about you? Over the phone you said the same thing happened to you.”

“Yeah.”

“Well...hang on. There is one more thing I remember. There was this...this guy. Out in the woods.”

“A guy in a suit.” 

“Yeah. But it wasn’t...it wasn’t  _ human,  _ Alex. I know it wasn’t, and I...I’ve seen it before.”

Alex looks at him, eyebrow raised in dubious curiosity. 

“Where?” he asks. 

“On your tapes,” Seth says, “I saw it when I was going through footage for Marble Hornets. It’s in the background of a few of them, but I-.”

Alex stops and glares at Seth.

“And you never said anything?!” he demands.

“I thought it was some kind of glitch! You know, those tapes aren’t exactly the poster children for good, clear footage.” 

“You thought a tall guy in a suit was glitch.” 

“Look, I’m sorry, ok?” Seth snaps, “But it doesn’t matter right now. What are we going to do about it?”

Alex pauses and takes a breath, stowing his anger for now.

“I don’t know,” he says, “but we need to be careful. Everything we do from here on out stays between us.”

“What about everyone else? Wasn’t Brian supposed to come up with us?” 

Seth watches Alex’s face carefully. Does he feel remorse? Hatred? Nothing at all? Alex is silent for a moment, and try as Seth might, he can’t tell what the cagey man could possibly be thinking. 

“Don’t worry about him,” Alex says. 

“What does that mean? Alex what happened?” 

“I don’t want to talk about it right now, Seth.” 

“Alex, you can’t just tell me not to worry about it and then-.”

“I said, I don’t want to talk about it,” Alex says, his tone taking a dark turn. He glances at Seth out of the corner of his eye, a clear order to drop it before the conversation gets nasty. 

“Ok, geez,” Seth says. 

_ But do you not want to talk about it because you don’t want me to know you tried to kill him? Or do you not want to talk about it because you know what you did and feel sorry? What reason could you have for even trying something like that? Do you even know? Do you even remember?   _

Seth takes a deep breath and puts his hands in his pockets. 

“Well, I think what we need to do now is try to understand it,” he says, “It has to have some kind of weakness right? Some way to avoid it so this doesn’t happen again.” 

“Maybe,” Alex says, “but I’m a little more concerned with something else right now.”

“Like what?” 

“When was the last time you saw Tim? Or Sarah?” 

Seth tenses. Sarah. Something about Sarah is nagging at the back of his mind. He knows something about her, about what happened to her. Something important and terrifying, but he can’t recall it. It’s fallen through another one of the gaps in his memory. Just when he thought they were starting to close.

“I don’t know. Not in a while.”

“I think something might have happened to them. Before we do anything else, we need to find them.”

“How? We have nothing to go on.”

“I’ll call you when I figure something out.” 

Alex reaches into his pocket for his keys, and Seth realizes just how close they’ve wandered to the parking lot. His heart starts beating faster.

“W-wait, what am I supposed to do then?”

“See if you can reach Sarah. You two were good friends, right?” 

“Well...yeah.” 

“Ok then, so I’ll look for Tim. You look for Sarah. We’ll call each other if we find anything. Deal?”

“Yeah. Yeah, ok, deal.”

  
  
  



	7. 31 Days

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear I didn't mean to go this long without updating D8(
> 
> So this chapter isn't my favorite (probably why it took so long to write) but there were things that needed to happen before stuff started getting intense again, which they will very soon...

It’s been three days since they met with Seth. 

Tim can feel Brian’s presence behind him long before his friend puts his hand on the back of Tim’s chair and leans in close to view the computer screen. Tim’s heart rate spikes for just a moment, startled by the tickle of Brian’s breath against his face. As he levels out and finishes labeling another video, he wonders why he’s so on edge today. Too much time hunting for monsters in dark, grainy forests. 

“Damn, how much footage have we collected?” Brian asks, looking at the folder on Tim’s laptop that contains a record of every tape they’ve taken from Alex. 

“Too much,” Tim answers as Alex’s latest tape finishes importing. Tim files it away with the others, naming it with the date it was taken, and unplugs the camera from the computer. 

“We’re almost done, man,” Brian says, taking his hand off the back of the chair and clapping it down on Tim’s shoulder. 

“Sure doesn’t feel like we’re any closer, though,” Tim says, “We know that Alex was paranoid and stressed, but I don’t see any evidence that he’s not still in control of his actions. At least, back during filming anyway. Have you heard anything from Seth?” 

“Not much. He’s too scared to talk to us for long,” Brian says, “but it sounds like Alex is jerking him around. Alex is supposedly looking for you, and he’s sent Seth off looking for Sarah.” 

“God, I didn’t know she was missing too. Either that or she’s fine and Alex is lying to Seth to keeping him off his back,” Tim says. 

“If that were the case, she would be easy to find. Seth said she’s not answering her phone,” Brian says, “That workshop of hers was only supposed to last a week. If she’s not back by now then something is wrong. He says he’s going to check out her apartment. He just needs to come up with an excuse for someone to let him in.”

“How many people is he going to go after? When is he going to stop?!” Tim asks, standing up. 

Brian steps back from the desk and takes a deep breath. His shoulders sag, and he bites the inside of his cheek. 

“I don’t know. The only person left who was part of the original crew is Jay. I called him yesterday, and he seemed fine. He said he hasn’t seen Alex in a while,” he says. 

“You think he’s next?” Tim asks. 

“I’m not sure. Honestly, since he’s gone this long without being bothered, he might skate by. I’m just hoping he won’t do anything stupid and get involved. Otherwise, he might be able to continue on like normal. He wasn’t as involved with Marble Hornets as the rest of us were, and all this started around the time Alex started that project.” 

Tim snorts. 

“Well that’s one person at least.” 

“In the meantime,” Brian continues, “I have no idea what else Seth plans to do, but he told me he doesn’t want me calling him anymore.” 

“Are you kidding me?” 

“He said he doesn’t want to risk Alex finding out that we’re working together and that he’d figure out a way to tell us what Alex is doing. I don’t know what that means, but I guess we’ll find out.” 

“Does he think Alex is going to go through his phone records or something?” 

“I-,” Brian stops and sighs. A guilty expression crosses his face and he puts his hands in his pockets, “I’m worried about him. Seth has always been...kind of weird, but the way he’s acting right now I have to wonder if he’s...if he’s all there right now.” 

Tim stops and tries to think of something to say, but there’s nothing he can think of that will make Brian feel better. He can’t say he disagrees when he knows Brian is right. 

“Nothing we can do about it now, I guess,” he offers. 

“Guess not,” Brian says. 

A moment of silence passes between them. Tim shuts the laptop and taps his fingers against the back of the desk chair. Brian rubs the back of his neck and stares out the window for a few seconds before looking back at Tim, his expression brightening, clearly eager to change the subject. 

“You hungry? I thought about making some real food tonight,” he says. 

Tim grimaces. 

“Um, Brian…” 

“Nothing fancy,” Brian interrupts, “but something that doesn’t have to be microwaved.” 

“That does sound tempting.” 

“And I will let you do all the stove...ing.” 

Tim laughs. 

“Stove-ing?” 

“It’s a word.” 

“No it’s not.” 

“Yes it is, because I just made it up, and I said so.” 

“Well, your house, your rules, I guess.” 

“That’s right. Now come on, I’m starving.”

* * *

 

 

It’s been seventeen days since he met with Brian and Tim.

Seth’s hands won’t stop shaking, and his mouth feels dry. Sarah’s apartment door is ajar. No one walking by would ever notice it - the bolt is almost touching the lock - but the door is still open. A sign of someone’s haste. Someone’s neglect. 

Inside, the apartment is unremarkable. Neat, but lived in. Furniture, dishes, books, shoes, undisturbed. Windows shut. Curtains cracked. Seth’s hand hovers by the lightswitch, but he stops. The darkness and silence around him feel too weighty to disturb. The space feels like a shrine. A memorial to a once normal life. 

_ I know she’s dead. Why can’t I remember why I know that?  _

As time passes, Seth feels more and more certain that he doesn’t want to remember. Nothing pleasant can come of crossing that threshold in his mind, and these days unpleasant things are far too easy to come by. He swears his sanity is slipping a little more every day as tragedies and mysteries alike pile up, and he doesn’t want to know what remembering what happened to Sarah will do to that teetering stack. Even so, curiosity continues to plague him.

He starts walking through the apartment, picking up objects and setting them back down. He rifles through a book left on the sofa and wonders what he’s even doing here. What is he hoping to find? He sets the book down again and walks down the hall to the bathroom. It’s messier than the living room, but Seth isn’t all that surprised. Sarah has countless bottles of hair products, worn down eyeliner pencils, and palettes of eyeshadow. An actress has to maintain her appearance after all. At first nothing seems out of place here either, but then he notices the bottle of Nyquil on the counter and all the cough drop wrappers in the trashcan. He frowns. She could have been suffering from a normal cold, but he knows the likelihood of that isn’t good.

Finally he looks in her bedroom. The first thing he notices is the folding table lying with some dishes and a book in a crumpled heap on the floor. The blanket on Sarah’s bed is spilling over onto the floor as well. Only a small portion is still hanging onto the mattress. Altogether, they’re the only things out of place, but it’s concerning never-the-less. If Sarah had some kind of accident, Seth doubts she would have left it like this for long. She definitely wouldn’t have left it like this before going on a trip. 

_ Assuming she got to the workshop at all.  _

He tries to remember how he learned that Sarah had gone to some acting workshop. He knows that she didn’t tell him directly, and he never met up with Brian when he and Alex left town for filming. 

_ Alex. Alex told me about it on the way there. He said when she got back from her trip we would film some more scenes with her.  _

He takes a step back and stares at the mess on the floor. An image flickers around his thoughts, begging to be explored. He tries to think about something else, but that only gives the memory strength. 

_ No, no, I don’t want to remember, please- _

Rain. He remembers rain. There was so much water. A deluge greater than anything he’d ever experienced. He thought he was going to drown. 

He stumbles backward, grabbing at the door frame, trying to catch himself, but it doesn’t work. His sweaty palms slip on the wood and he crashes to the floor. His legs won’t stop shaking as he tries to breathe through the heavy lump in his throat. Each breath comes out as a choked sob. He feels like he’s going to be sick. Her face is burned into his mind, glassy eyes staring up at him. 

He struggles to get to his feet as his sobs turn into ragged coughs. He can’t breathe. He can’t breathe. 

_ I’m going to die I’m going to die I’m going to- _

He stumbles down the hall, struggling and failing to catch his balance again. His palms burn as they scrape against the carpet. He sucks in as much air as he can as the clamp around his lungs seems to loosen, if only for a second. His face feels hot and wet, and still he can’t stop shaking. He crumples into a shivering ball on the floor and closes his eyes as the flood continues to surge. Never in his life has knowledge felt like such a curse.

* * *

 

 

It’s been twenty-eight days since their meeting.

They’ve gotten through three-quarters of Alex’s tapes. Taking only two at a time means the going has been slow, but as Tim looks at each tape for the black mark on the label, he realizes just how far it’s gotten them in little less than a month. He wonders if these tapes will be the ones that actually tell them something useful. Lately it seems to him that all they’ve learned is that this has been going on for a while with very few clues as to whether Alex is a victim or a cause. 

He picks out two more tapes and puts them in his jacket pockets. Brian is standing by the bedroom door, staring off into space.

“How’s the keeping watch going?” Tim asks. 

Brian blinks and snaps out of his trance. 

“Hm?” 

“I got it, come on. Let’s get out of here,” Tim says. 

“Right.” 

Tim stands up. 

“You gonna take care of the camera again?” he asks. 

“Yeah,” Brian murmurs, though his mind still seems to be somewhere else. 

“Hey, you feeling ok? You’re acting awfully spacey,” Tim says. 

Brian opens his mouth to answer, but both his and Tim’s attention is drawn away from the conversation by the sound of gravel crunching in the driveway and the soft purr of a car’s engine. Brian swears under his breath and grabs onto Tim’s arm just as Tim’s heart starts racing. He prays that it’s just a delivery driver or the mailman or something, but deep down he knows that isn’t likely. They both knew that sooner or later Alex’s schedule would change again. Today seems to be the day. 

They hurry down the hall and into the living room. As they head for the back door, Tim sees Brian’s eyes flick towards the camera which is still pointed at the front door. They long since abandoned entering through the front - that way their images wouldn’t be captured - but if Alex plays the tape back, it’ll become obvious to him that someone was in the house. It won’t take him long to figure out who. Tim hears a car door slam. They have seconds. 

Brian yanks open the back door and they run outside. Tim tries to close the door quietly behind him, but in his haste he has no idea how successful he was. Not that it matters much now. They duck down, out of sight of the windows, and hold their breaths. Tim can’t hear the engine anymore, and the silence is filled instead by the sound of cicadas humming in the trees. Brian gestures towards the grove of trees not far from the house. He holds up three fingers, counting down. 

_ Three...two...one. _

They bolt away from the house. Tim knows if Alex just happens to look out the window they’ll be spotted, but he forces himself to stop thinking about it. He focuses instead of the crunch of the dry grass beneath his feet and the rush of the hot, wet air around him. As soon as they clear the tree line, Brian grabs onto his arm again and drags him behind a tall bush. 

The heavy summer air feels thick in Tim’s lungs, and it makes catching his breath more difficult than it should. He coughs and starts to think this time it really is because he’s an out-of-shape smoker, and not because of their tall friend. Brian stares at the house, motionless and rigid with fear. Alex doesn’t appear at the window though, and he doesn’t come out to investigate the racket Tim is sure they made. Brian turns back towards him and starts heading deeper into the woods. 

“Come on,” he says, “I hope whatever is on those tapes is worthwhile. I’d say from here on out our chances of getting more are slim.”

“At least most of it has just been him filming himself and not really doing much else,” Tim says, “If we can get the rest of them we should, but I guess it’s not a huge deal if we can’t. I’d rather stay alive.” 

Brian sighs and puts his hands in his jacket pockets. 

“Yeah, I doubt it’s worth it at this point. Still, I thought we would know more by now,” he says. 

“Maybe we’re looking in the wrong places,” Tim offers. 

“I’m not sure there’s anywhere  _ left _ to look.”    
“Well, let’s just take a look at the tapes when we get home. Maybe it’ll be  _ something _ useful.” 

“Yeah. Sure.”

* * *

 

 

It’s been thirty-one days since their meeting.

Seth opens up the voicemail from Alex and listens to it again as he looks up at the dilapidated building through the night vision on his camera. He realizes that no matter how many times he hears it, no matter how many times he picks it apart, he’ll come to the same conclusion, but at the same time he wants to believe that he’s not walking into a trap. 

_ “Hey, I know I said I was going to look for Tim, but I might have found something that can tell us where Sarah went. I’m going to text you an address. It’s abandoned, but it’s still private property so we’ll have to sneak in. Meet me there tomorrow night. Midnight.”  _

Seth puts his phone back in his pocket. His instincts are telling him to run before Alex gets here. He can just disappear into the night, leave his apartment, and get somewhere far out of state. Alex would never find him. He could forget that any of this ever happened, but if he did that…

He groans and starts pacing. If he did that this would just continue. That thing would just keep coming after him. Alex would just pick another target. Nothing would get solved. Dim headlights sweep across the street behind him and then go out. A car door opens and closes. 

Seth turns around and points his camera at Alex, making sure the night vision is still working. 

“You bring your camera?” Alex asks. 

“Yeah.” 

Seth hits the record button.

“Is it on?” Alex asks.

Seth just nods. 

“Keep it rolling.”

* * *

 

 

It’s been thirty-one days.

The night air is crisp and a breeze plays with their hair, a welcome break from the stagnant humidity. The moon lights up the yard, turning the grass blue and silver and the trees charcoal gray. Brian puts his hands in his pockets and leans against the side of the house.

“I think we should start moving around more,” he says, “Just to be safe, you know?” 

“How much are you talking? Where would we go?” Tim asks. 

“I’m not sure. Alex has to know we were in his house by now, though.” 

“Well, we didn’t show up on the camera did we?”

“That doesn’t matter. He’ll have heard us, and even if he didn’t, who else would break into his house at this point?” 

“Yeah, I guess you have a point.” 

Tim reaches into his pocket for his cigarettes and pulls one out of its packaging. The sharp smell of tobacco smoke wafts through the air as he lights it. Brian stares at the glowing end of the cigarette, abnormally bright in the darkness. 

“So when do you think we should leave?” Tim asks. 

“Tomorrow night,” Brian answers. 

“Alright. What time is it?” 

“I don’t know. Midnight?”

“Ok. I’ll head over to my apartment in a few hours then.” 

Brian raises an eyebrow. 

“What for?” 

“To get the rest of my refills. If we’re gonna be bumming it for a while, I don’t want to run out. As long as I go tonight, I doubt Alex will get to me. I don’t think even he would want to get up at three in the morning just for us.” 

“I don’t know. It’s been four days and he’s been quiet,” Brian says, “It’s making me nervous.”

“You said so yourself that he takes a while to get organized before he does something,” Tim replies. 

“Yeah, but not this long. If he hasn’t made a move yet, then he could strike any day now. Or any hour even.” 

“All the more reason for me to get a move on and get my stuff before that happens.” 

“Fine. Good point. But I’m coming with you.” 

“I’ll be fine. You should start getting those tapes backed up.” 

“Not a chance, buddy. I go where you go.” 

Tim sighs and takes a drag from his cigarette. 

“Alright. You’re the mastermind,” he says, blowing smoke into the wind, “but if Alex really does show up, let’s face it. I’d kick his ass.” 

Brian laughs. 

“Fair enough.”

* * *

 

 

Midnight passes. It’s been thirty-two days. 

Seth isn’t sure if the red splatters and smears on the wall are really blood, or if they’re just the result of kids messing around. He isn’t sure if Alex really is surprised to see them, or if he somehow planted them there for show. He isn’t sure if he should still keep his guard up, or if he was wrong about Alex’s intentions. He isn’t sure of anything except that he’s scared out of his wits and wants to be as far away from here as possible. When Alex says it’s time to go, he doesn’t even pause to consider that this might still be part of the trap. He follows him like an obedient dog, hands trembling and fighting to hold the camera steady. 

Seth feels a tickle in the back of his throat, hears a whisper in the shadows. This has to be it right? If Alex is going to make his move, he has to do it now. Are they really heading for the entrance? Or are they just going deeper into the building? He’s not sure. He tried to pay attention to where they were going, but it was nearly impossible in the dark. Could Alex be hiding a weapon in his coat? Or maybe he’ll just pick up a board and bash his head in. His heart is pounding. 

Seth slows down and tries to slow his breathing, but he can’t. He looks off down a hallway, adrenaline spiking in his blood. He doesn’t know where the hallway leads, but whatever is down there can’t possibly be worse than the man in front of him. Alex stops when he notices that Seth isn’t following. 

“Come on!” he insists. 

Seth doesn’t say a word. He turns and starts walking towards the hallway, afraid to run in case he trips on a pile of debris. Every molecule inside him is screaming at him to get out, to put aside reason and rational thinking and run until the sun rises. 

Without warning, white-hot pain stabs through Seth’s skull, more intense than anything he’s ever felt. It’s as if someone shot him in the head, but he knows if that were the case he’d be dead. He screams, the camera falling from his fingers. His hands and knees collide with the dusty floor. Somewhere in the darkness, he swears he sees a blank white face looking down at him. Alex says his name, and the sound sends another wave of agony shooting through his head. 

Alex leans down and picks up the camera on the ground. He puts it in his pocket and then goes for something else on the floor. Seth hears a metallic scraping sound against the concrete and the crunch of footsteps coming towards him. Seth tries to push himself forward, but it feels like a wall of electricity is there, caging him in and leaving him at the mercy of the monsters. He cries out again as the migraine reasserts itself and a cough rips through his lungs. 

“Make it stop,” he chokes out, crumpling on the ground. 

When the bar strikes his head, it feels like a gift from God. 


	8. Means To An End

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm a bad person

Every window in Tim’s apartment complex is dark, and the only sources of light are the sparse lamp posts outside and the dim fluorescent lights over the apartment doors. Areas where lights have gone out entirely cover the parking lot in patchy darkness. In places where the bulbs are still lit, moths do loops through the air. Brian puts the hood of his jacket up and puts his hands in his pockets. Tim looks at him, waiting for the ok. Brian nods. 

“I'll send you a text if I see anything suspicious,” he says, “Be careful, man.”

Tim turns and starts heading across the parking lot towards the stairs to the upper levels. Brian skirts around the edge of the lot, blending into the shadows just out of reach of the lights. Nothing suspicious stands out to him right away, but he wasn’t expecting anything to. As Tim heads up the stairs, Brian darts through a patch of darkness to a space under the first landing. He looks up through the rickety metal, listening to Tim’s footsteps as he arrives on the second floor, before turning his attention back to his immediate surroundings. 

Taking care to mute his own steps, he ventures onto the sheltered sidewalk towards the apartments on the first floor. He peers around a corner near the end and stops to listen. He sees nothing. Hear’s nothing. An anxious knot in his stomach that began forming when they first arrived grows tighter. It’s just too damn quiet. 

He heads back for the stairs. He can’t hear Tim anymore. Tim must already be in his apartment. Brian begins ascending the stairs, moving slowly and quietly so he can listen for any movement. His heart starts pounding. The knot starts to feel more like a sharp static humming in his gut. He takes a breath and tells himself to calm down, but he can’t. He can’t stop seeing figures in the shadows. Can’t stop his skin from crawling. Even so, all seems quiet as he approaches Tim’s door. 

He stops outside and takes a deep breath. He releases the tension in his shoulders and leans against the wall by the window. That’s when he hears the thump. By the time he hears the crash that follows, he's at the door with his hand on the knob. It doesn't budge. His hands start shaking. 

 

Tim shouldn’t have let his guard down. He didn't even stop to consider that Alex might already be inside his apartment. He thought the lock on his door and the benefit of living on the second story would be enough to protect him. He thought having Brian with him was overkill. He thought that if someone really was in his apartment that he would notice. He shouldn't have let his guard down. 

Alex’s hands are around his neck, loose enough for him to breathe, but tight enough for his body to start panicking. He grasps at Alex’s arms, trying to get loose, but Alex has him pinned against the wall. Alex’s grip only gets tighter as Tim struggles, forcing the fight right out of him. 

“What do you think you’re playing at, huh?” Alex demands, “I know you broke into my house, Tim.” 

“Kinda like you’re doing right now?” Tim asks, trying to cling to what little control he has left over this situation. Alex doesn’t appreciate it. 

Pain shoots up Tim’s back as Alex slams him against the wall again. For a moment he can’t breathe as he stares at Alex, frozen with fear. Alex’s eyes look black in the dim light, and yet they burn with such fury as Tim has never seen before in anyone else. 

“Tell me where Brian is!” he says, “I know you weren’t alone.” 

Tim coughs as the pressure on his neck decreases. His heart continues to pound. Brian. He doesn't need to speculate about what will happen if he gives Brian up. He can't let that happen. 

Tim feels Alex’s arms relax just a touch. Without thinking much about it, he swings at Alex’s head and pushes forward. Alex yells in surprise and for a moment releases his grip on Tim. It doesn’t last. Tim makes a break for the door, but before he can get far he feels Alex’s hands on his shoulders. His feet slip out from under him, and his body collides with the floor as Alex throws him to the side. 

Alex walks between Tim and the door. Tim swears he sees movement outside and prays that Brian doesn’t try to break the door down. He looks back up at Alex as the taller man walks towards him and kneels down in front of him. He grabs the front of Tim’s jacket and pulls him close enough for Tim to feel the warmth of his breath. 

“I'm going to ask you one more time, Tim.”

Tim kicks at him again and wrenches himself free. He scrambles to his feet and runs to put some distance between himself and Alex. He comes to a stop on the other side of the couch, and the two stop to stare each other down. 

“I can do this all night, you know,” Alex says, coiled and ready to spring in case Tim tries to run again, “And I  _ will  _ find him eventually. Right now, all you're doing is deciding whether or not I'll have to hurt you to get to him.” 

“Why do you have to hurt any of us, huh?!” Tim shoots back, “What did any of us ever do to you?!”

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

Tim’s eyes dart towards the kitchen. If he can just get his hands on some kind of weapon. A kitchen knife, hell even some kind of blunt object. Alex seems to know what he’s thinking, and the minute Tim breaks for the kitchen, Alex all but vaults over the couch to get to him. 

Tim yanks open the first drawer his hands find as he tries to remember where he put the one knife he owns. He doesn’t get far. Alex has taken no time at all to catch up to him. Tim turns and swings. His fist connects with Alex’s eye and Alex stumbles backwards, swearing. Tim pulls open another drawer. Silverware clatters inside, but still no knives. Tim turns towards Alex again just in time to see him pull a knife from his jacket pocket. “Looking for this?” Alex’s expression seems to say. 

Tim jumps backwards as Alex slashes at him. Tim looks back towards the living room. He’s at a dead end. Alex lunges forward again. Tim’s back hits a closet door. The knife comes down. 

Tim knows he’s been stabbed. He has to have been. There’s a new, sharp pain in his stomach that wasn’t there before. He  _ knows  _ he’s been stabbed. Yet at the same time, he hardly feels it at all. His whole body feels numb with shock. His brain screams at him to move, to fight, to do something other than stand here and let himself be attacked, but his limbs won’t obey him. All he can do is stare as blood begins to soak his shirt. His knees start to buckle. A new bloom of pain strikes him in the abdomen again as Alex yanks the knife out. He screams as the sensation finally shocks him out of his daze. 

There’s a moment where Alex doesn’t move as Tim sinks to the floor, as if he’s just as startled by what he’s done as Tim is. It doesn’t last though, and before Tim can fall all the way down to the tile, Alex’s foot connects with his jaw. Everything goes blurry. Fire feels like it’s coursing through his face, and spots dance across Tim’s vision. When his body hits the tile, this time he doesn’t try to get up again. He coughs and a few drops of blood hit the ground. When he glances up again, Alex is tense and ready for another swing. 

“Alex, stop,” he pleads. 

“I will if you tell me what happened to Brian,” Alex replies. 

“ _ I  _ don’t even know where he is, ok?” Tim says, pausing as another bout of coughing wracks his body, “We’ve been separated for months.” 

Alex scoffs. 

“I’m not an idiot, Tim.” 

He crouches down next to him and grabs his arms. Tim groans as Alex pulls him to his feet and wraps his arm around Tim’s neck from behind. His entire head is throbbing now, and his whole body aches. His stomach burns with every movement. Alex holds the knife up, as if Tim could forget it was there.

“Here’s how it’s going to work,” Alex says, guiding Tim forward and out of the kitchen, “Since you won’t tell me where Brian went, we’re going to go find him together.” 

Tim doesn’t argue. This isn’t a fight he can win anymore. 

_ Brian, don’t do anything stupid.  _

They step outside and make their way to the stairs. The air feels frigid compared to the heat in the apartment. Tim half expects there to be people outside coming to investigate all the noise, but as before it’s completely silent. He doesn’t see any sign of Brian. He’s glad for it. It means his friend is somewhere safe for now. Hiding. Waiting. Alex looks around. 

“Brian? You can’t win this one. This doesn’t have to get any messier,” he says, even though they both know that isn’t true. 

Alex starts taking them down the stairs. 

“He’s not here, Alex. I already told you that,” Tim says, trying to ignore the fact that it’s getting more and more painful just to breathe.

Alex doesn’t respond. 

“Come on, Brian. We don’t have all night,” he calls. 

“What would you want Brian for anyway?” Tim mutters, “All he ever does is try to help people, and you’re trying to kill him for it. Some friend you are.” 

“Shut up,” Alex growls, tightening his grip on Tim.

“Alex, he’s gone. I haven’t seen him,” Tim insists. 

“So you expect me to believe you’re working with someone else? Like who?” 

“Not anyone you know.” 

Alex pauses. It’s only for a second, but it’s enough for Tim. If he can derail him even just a little, they might stand a better chance of making it out of this mess alive. He coughs again and hopes that the iron tang in his mouth is just from his split lip and not an indication of something worse. 

 

It takes every ounce of self-control Brian possesses not to launch himself at Alex and rip his throat out. Just when he thinks this can’t possibly get any worse, he notices yet another detail that tells of Tim’s dire situation. The knife. The blood. Everything is spiraling out of control. He shouldn’t have agreed to this. They should have skipped town the moment they thought they’d been discovered. He can’t believe what an idiot he was for ignoring his instincts, even when they were screaming at him that something was wrong. 

He peers over the utility box again as Alex asks Brian once more to reveal himself, and Tim tries again to deny that they’re working together, going so far as to say the person he’s working with is a complete stranger. As Brian hovers in the shadows, just one step away from revealing himself and accepting whatever consequences that may bring, he realizes what Tim is trying to do. 

_ He’s trying to scare him.  _

Fear is such an excellent tool. It’s not as flashy as a knife or a gun, but it’s certainly more versatile. The wheels in his mind start turning, thinking about the ways he can wield this new weapon Tim is trying to give him. It’s almost like a game. A game with very complicated rules and the highest of stakes. Too high, perhaps. 

_ What the hell am I thinking? If I just stand around and let this happen…I can’t possibly predict what Alex will do if I choose not to jump in and save Tim.   _

He takes a breath as a new voice in the back of his mind chimes in. 

_ Well, why can’t you?  _

If he saves Tim, there’s a chance he can at least incapacitate Alex, even if he doesn’t kill him. However, if he fails and Tim can’t help, Alex could kill both of them. If he lets Alex take Tim, he can rescue him later without revealing his identity. Then they’ll have an edge, and Alex’s paranoia will only get worse, something that will make him easier to manipulate. Then they can decide what to do with him. And if  _ that  _ fails, Brian could just be letting Tim die, but the payoff seems to outweigh the risk. Saving Tim now will mean their edge over Alex will never increase past its current point, but waiting will give them options they didn’t have before. He sinks back behind the box. 

_ I’m sorry, T. Don’t worry, I’ll get you out of there before anything happens. I’ll be damned if I let this bastard hurt anyone else.  _

“So that’s how it is, huh,” Alex says, “That’s fine. I have all the time in the world, so when you’re ready to come clean, come find me. I’ll take care of Tim in the meantime.” 

Brian hears the scrape of shoes against the asphalt. Tim shouts, struggles. Brian’s heart pounds. His mouth tastes like metal. 

_ But what if I’m wrong. _

There’s a flash of yellow light in the parking lot from a car neither of them noticed when they first arrived. Brian presses himself deeper into the darkness near the utility box as Alex comes into view, practically dragging Tim with him. He doesn’t think Alex will kill Tim immediately; he thinks he has time to make a plan, but what if he’s wrong? What if he missed something? 

Alex gets the door of his car open. Brian can’t tell if Tim has stopped fighting because he’s realized Alex isn’t going to kill him here or if it’s because he’s in too much pain to continue. Alex pauses, and Brian watches as his grip tightens around Tim’s neck, cutting off his air. Brian feels frozen to the spot. He stares at the ground, unable to watch as Alex renders Tim unconscious and pushes him into the back seat of his car. 

_ Oh my God, what have I done, Tim’s trusting me to get him out of this but what if I can’t what if I can’t. _

The engine starts up, and before long they’re gone. Nausea rolls over Brian as his thoughts continue to spiral out of control, and all sorts of horrible scenarios and self-defeating mantras play in his mind. It takes a moment to get a hold of himself. He forces himself to breathe. He took a guess. He made his decision. If he doesn’t want that decision to kill the only friend he has left, he has to act  _ now.  _

He grabs the utility box with one hand and heaves himself up. His legs feel numb from crouching so long, but he ignores it and walks towards his car, dazed and panicking but refusing to let that stop him. 

_ “Come find me.”  _

_ Gladly. _

* * *

 

 

Tim can’t think straight. His mind is too occupied by the chaos of sensation all over his body. There’s so much pain in his gut, his head, his arms, that one area blends into the next and merges into a centralized, throbbing ache. He realizes as some of the fog dissipates from his mind that he’s sitting upright. He hears metal creaking as he moves and realizes he’s sitting in a folding chair. He can’t move his arms, and his wrists feel irritated by whatever is binding them to the chair. Concentrating on the sensation, he realizes it’s duct tape. The air is cold, and the room smells like concrete dust. Where is he? 

He doesn’t open his eyes. Doesn’t want to. If Alex is here, he doesn’t want to know. If he can pretend he’s still unconscious, then Alex will have to leave him alone. Assuming he’s even here right now. Tim takes a breath, but even that hurts. He groans, and then he coughs. One cough turns into two and then three. Pain shoots through his stomach like forks of lightning as his lungs fight for a breath, and it just gets worse and worse as the fit continues. He can’t breathe. Oh God, it hurts so much, and it just goes on and on and on…

His body burns as the fit subsides. He’s sure he’s about to cry, but no tears come. He just feels stiff and empty. Finally he gets a breath in, and looks at the room around him. 

The first streaks of morning light are filtering in through the window, though dawn is still a ways off. He’s sitting in the only useable piece of furniture down here. Everything else is either a cardboard box whose contents he can’t be sure of or some broken lamp or shelf that’s been cast aside. The walls and floors are bare concrete, and even the smallest sounds echo. Off to the side is a set of wooden stairs and a support column. He’s never been here before, but he can take a good guess as to whose basement this is even though the owner is nowhere in sight. He’s alone. Tim lets his head fall forward, and he closes his eyes again.

He can’t believe he’s made it this far, honestly. He thought for sure he was a goner the moment he blacked out, but he’s here. He’s alive, for now. 

_ And hopefully so is Brian. I hope he has a plan.  _

The floor above him creaks and he hears a door open. He looks up as Alex appears at the bottom of the stairs, silent and shrouded in darkness. All Tim can see is the glint of his glasses, but he knows Alex is looking at him. Evaluating him. Tim takes a deep breath, trying to stop himself from breathing so fast. His body seems to know how much danger he’s in. It has the sense to be afraid. Tim, however, refuses to give Alex the satisfaction, and he looks him in the eye as Alex steps forward. He doesn’t seem impressed by Tim’s defiance.  

“So what do you think is going to happen first?” Alex asks, “Are you gonna tell me what happened to Brian? Or do you think he's going to come crashing in here to try and save you?” 

Tim sighs. 

“I'm not going to repeat myself,” he mutters. 

“Oh, right, because you really have no idea where he is. Because you have some  _ mysterious partner  _ I don't know about. Is it Seth? Because I doubt he's going to be much help anymore,” Alex says. 

That gets Tim’s attention. A bubble of anger rises in his chest, threatening to burst and unleash an all-out tirade, but he forces it down. He takes a breath and closes his eyes, trying not to imagine what Alex did to Seth. He knew this would happen. He told him so. He knew Alex would try something, and he knew Seth wouldn’t be strong enough to fend him off. He prepared himself for this, so why does he feel so nauseous? 

“Why are you doing this?” he breathes. 

Alex balls his hands into fists. 

“Are you serious?!” he shouts, “You  _ know _ what’s after us! Everyone else is just sitting around, acting like it’s not a big deal, even after everything it’s done!” 

“You mean everything  _ you’ve  _ done?” Tim interrupts. 

“At least I’m doing something! I’m trying to keep it from spreading to anyone else, and I’m not going to stand here and try to justify myself to you.” 

Tim glowers at Alex, but he remains silent. Alex takes a breath and steps back. He looks away from Tim and starts walking towards the other side of the room. As he turns, Tim can just make out the beginnings of a bruise around his eye. The sight brings Tim more satisfaction that it’s probably worth, but he clings to it anyway. Alex is silent for a moment before deciding, despite his previous statement, that he’s not done yet.

“You, Brian and Seth are too involved,” he continues, “I thought maybe it wanted something from me, and I tried to give it that, but you’re still here, and all you’re doing is giving it new targets with every person you interact with. It has to end.”

Tim scoffs. 

“Oh, that’s it, isn’t it? Sacrifice your friends to save your own skin?” he asks. This time there’s no holding back his fury, “You’re trying to tell me you’re helping everyone, but all I see is a selfish bastard trying to blame his problems on people who never even-!” 

“Shut up!” 

Tim’s vision goes red as Alex socks him in the jaw. The chair creaks and shifts, and for a moment he thinks it’ll tip over. The dull pain he’d finally gotten used to flares up again into sharp pangs. His split lip opens up again, and he tastes blood in his mouth. He starts coughing again and loses all sense of reality for a moment as he tries to ignore just how much everything  _ hurts _ . Alex takes a step back. There’s fury in his eyes, but also fear. Doubt. 

As Tim’s fit subsides he looks up at Alex again. He knows he should stop antagonizing him, but honestly it feels so good to spit curses at him and watch his words dig their way under his skin. He’ll take any amount of physical punishment if it means making Alex squirm. 

Alex takes a breath and looks away from Tim. He starts heading for the stairs. 

“We’re done here,” he says.

“If we were really done I’d be dead” Tim says. 

Alex ignores him and disappears again. The dull thud of footsteps echoes above him and fades away as Alex goes into another room. Tim finally allows himself to relax. He squeezes his eyes shut again. His head is spinning now, and he wonders how much blood he’s lost. Surely it can’t be that much, right? How long has it been? 

_ What if I die here?...What is this is it?  _

Normally the thought wouldn’t bother him. He’s had enough thoughts like this before, thoughts that were arguably more frightening than these. Tonight though...it scares him. 

_ What? I...how is this  _ fair _?! I’m going to die here alone in someone’s fucking basement, tied to a chair like some animal, and that’s  _ it _?! I just got here! I just got out! I just... _

His eyes begin to sting, and tears start to drip down his face and onto his shirt. He grits his teeth and struggles to control his breathing. He tells himself that he’s not going to die. Brian wouldn’t let him die like this. He tells himself to ignore the thoughts as they come, but it’s so hard, it’s so goddamn hard. In the end all he can do is breathe and hope that his brain eventually decides to calm down. Assuming it ever calms down. His brain hasn’t functioned at any acceptable level since he was a kid, and at this point he doubts it ever will. 

He turns his head to watch as the sky continues to lighten. Anything to keep his mind occupied. He watches as the sky turns from gray to blue. Before long he can make out the shapes of the trees surrounding the house and the swathes of tall grass in between. His head continues to spin, and he starts to lose feeling in his hands. This doesn’t feel real. The sun continues to rise. 

_ Thud.  _

Someone upstairs shouts. 

_ Thud thud. Crash!  _

Tim tries to snap out of his daze, but his head feels like it’s full of static. He looks towards the stairs, but there’s no one there. He starts to look out the window again and into the woods, but a knot of dread settles in his stomach and he stops. His eyes remain fixed on the stairs. 

A moment of silence passes before he hears the door creak open once more. His heart hammers in his chest as someone descends the staircase. He expects Alex or Brian, but this isn’t what’s there to greet him. A blank white mask stares back at him instead of a face, framed by the hood of a black jacket. Time seems to slow for a moment as Tim struggles to process what he’s seeing. His heart beats faster. 

The figure reaches up, and in one swift movement pulls his hood back and lifts the mask off his face. The apprehension filling Tim’s chest evaporates. 

“Brian?! What…?” 

Brian doesn’t even pause. By the time Tim finishes his question, Brian has set the mask on the ground and is already peeling the duct tape off Tim’s wrists. Feeling rushes back into Tim’s hands as he pulls them free. He doesn’t even get a chance to collect himself before he’s enveloped in a tight hug. Tim winces, but he doesn’t protest. Brain mutters something under his breath to the effect of “Oh my God you’re ok.” He crouches in front of him, a mixture of horror and relief in his eyes. 

“How do you feel?” he asks. 

“I...what? Why does that matter? Where’s Alex?” Tim asks. 

Brian hesitates a moment and grimaces. 

“I, uh, may have hit him. And he may have hit his head on a counter top,” he says, “I feel kind of bad, but uh...also kind of good. Anyway, how are you feeling?” 

“Dizzy,” Tim mutters. 

He rests his head in his hands and takes a deep breath. 

“We need to get you to the hospital. Can you walk?” 

Brian puts his hands on Tim’s shoulders and stands. 

“I don’t know,” Tim says. 

“Here, come on,” Brian says, “One second.” 

He takes a moment to grab the mask off the ground and hands it to Tim. 

“Hang onto this,” he says, moving his hands to Tim’s arms and coaxing him up, “I’ll help you. You got it?” 

Tim rises, but his feet feel unsteady. He can’t figure out where to put his feet, and he stumbles forward. Brian’s grip on him tightens and he curses. 

“Hold on, hold on, just one second, buddy,” Brian says. 

He puts Tim’s arm around his shoulders and takes a moment to adjust his grip and make sure they’re not both going to fall over. Tim stares down at the mask in his hand. It seems to glow an unnatural white in the dim morning light. It’s blank eyes seem to be looking back at him. 

“Let’s get out of here,” Brian says. 

They head for the back door and stumble out into the yard. Brian coughs and Tim nearly jumps out of his skin. He stares at the grass under his feet and tries not to look at either the house or the woods.

“I had to park my car down the road so Alex wouldn't see it,” Brian says, “But I won't make you walk the whole way. Just let me find you somewhere to sit for a sec.”

“No I can do it,” Tim says. 

“Tim, you've just been  _ stabbed.  _ I'll book it, man, I promise. Alex is out cold right now.”

“Don't leave me out here, I-” 

Tim’s sentence is interrupted by another bout of coughing, and he fights to finish his sentence.

“It's out here...in the woods. I know it is. I can feel it.” 

Brain pauses for a moment as they walk around to the front of the house. He takes a breath. 

“Alright. Let's hoof it.”


	9. Tightrope

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Copious liberties have been taken with how emergency rooms and police investigations work because after looking at my fifth legal website trying to figure this shit out I had to convince myself that drinking a gallon of bleach would not help me get the next chapter out ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Thanks to everyone who's been commenting and leaving kudos! You guys are what encourages me to keep writing ^^

The emergency room is almost entirely empty when they arrive. The dead silence is a stark difference from the humming of cicadas and chirping of crickets outside. The air is cold and still, and the fluorescent lights seem as bright as the sun compared to the dying street lamps outside.  The space feels like a vacuum, a portal to a dream world where no sensation exists. Someone behind the desk stands up, shattering the illusion and bringing Brian back to reality. The triage nurse only needs to get one look at Tim’s state before she starts dialing up the nurses in the back. She rattles off a few cursory observations about Tim’s condition before walking into the lobby with a clipboard in hand. 

“Tell me what happened,” she says, even before Brian gets the chance to open his mouth. 

“He's been stabbed. Maybe an hour or two ago, I'm not sure,” Brian says. 

“Where?” 

“Uh, I don’t know...abdomen.”

The nurse guides them towards the back and into an exam room. Together they sit Tim down in the nearest chair. Brian crouches next to him, trying to figure out his he’s gotten better or worse. He seems to be drifting in and out of awareness, his dark eyes glazing over for a few seconds before snapping back to their normal, lively state. 

“Sir, can you hear me?” the nurse asks.

“Yeah, I’m just…” Tim says. He releases a breath and rests his face in his hands.

“Sir, are you feeling light-headed at all?” 

“He said earlier he was feeling dizzy. But I don’t know if that’s blood loss or something else,” Brian says, “I don’t know exactly what happened. How many times did you get hit?” 

“Twice,” Tim mutters. 

Brian grimaces, though he’s not sure why he’s surprised. Tim’s whole face looks swollen and primed to form some nasty bruises. 

_ Twice, though.  _ Twice  _ he hit him _ .  _ What the fuck is wrong with him.  _

“Ok,” the nurse says, scribbling some notes down on her chart. She stands up and retrieves some gauze pads from a drawer. 

“What’s your name?” she asks.

“Uh, Tim. Wright,” Tim says.

“Ok, Tim, I’m going to need you to lie down on the bed here. Do you think you can do that for me?” 

“Yeah.” 

Brian helps him stand up and move over to the hospital bed. His movements are slow, automatic, and Brian can’t help but feel a bit jittery. Can’t they speed this up? Where is everyone? He forces himself to take a breath and calm down. The nurse seems to know what she’s doing. Surely if Tim’s condition were worse, she’d be more worried, right? Or maybe she is and she's just trying to keep the two of them calm. 

“Ok, now I need you to hold this pad in place here until the doctor gets here, which won’t be too long, I promise,” the nurse says, pressing one of the pads against Tim’s wound and putting his hand over it, “I’m going to get a quick blood pressure reading and check your pulse.” 

She gets out a blood pressure cuff and wraps it around his free arm. As she takes the reading, she continues to talk.  

“So you already told me your name. Do you know what day it is?” 

“No, not by now,” Tim says.  

“Ok, and do you know where you are?” 

“Yeah. Hospital,” he pauses and takes a breath, “Oh God, I don’t want to be here.” 

He takes another shaky breath and squeezes his eyes shut. Brian feels a twist in his gut, and he leans forward to grab Tim’s free hand, trying to anchor him before he makes the situation worse. 

“Tim listen to me. You’re going to be fine, ok? You’re safe.” 

“You shouldn’t have brought me here, why did you bring me here?” 

“They’re going to help you, Tim. Take a deep breath. You’re ok.” 

Tim opens his eyes and looks over at Brian. His previous daze seems to have disappeared completely as it sinks in exactly where he is and a fresh shot of adrenaline rushes through him.

“Brian, they’re not going to let me leave,” he says. 

“They’ll let you go as soon as you're stable. I won’t let them keep you here, even if they try. I'll break you out if I have to, but not until you're not about to die on me.” 

Tim doesn’t answer. His hand is shaking. 

“Tim, do you believe me?” Brian asks, “I  _ will _ get you out.”  

Tim pauses and takes a deep breath. 

“Yeah. Ok. I believe you.” 

The nurse gives Brian a grateful look as she finishes getting her readings. She jots a few more notes down before turning and poking her head through a door leading deeper into the emergency department. 

“Come on, I need someone in here, stat!” she calls. She turns back to Tim and Brian. 

“Ok now, Brian - is that your name? Brian?” 

Brian nods. 

“Ok, Brian, you’re not going to be able to come into the back with Tim.” 

Brian sighs. 

“Yeah I know.” 

“Tim, did you hear me?” the nurse asks. 

“Yeah, I heard you,” Tim says. 

“Are you going to be ok?” 

Tim takes another shaky breath. 

“No, but I don’t have much of a choice.” 

“Like Brian said, we’re not going to keep you here against your will. We’re going to do our best to make sure you get better, but to do that you need to trust us.” 

“I…” Tim pauses, “I’ll try.” 

“Good, thank you.”

The door behind her opens and two more nurses enter. Brian takes a step back and lets go of Tim’s hand as they start unlocking the bed. 

“Hey, Tim, I’ll see you soon, ok?” Brian calls as they start wheeling him out, and just like that he’s gone. The triage nurse looks at Brian. 

“Alright, I’ve got some more questions for you about Tim. What’s your relationship to him?” 

“I’m his friend.” 

“Do you know how to get in touch with his family?”

“I...honestly I don’t know if he has any family  _ to  _ contact. He’s told me before that his mom is AWOL and he’s never mentioned his dad.”

“Do you know of any allergies he might have? Any medication he’s on?” 

“I don’t know about allergies, but I know he is on something. I’m not entirely sure what it is though. It’s either a seizure medication or an antipsychotic. I don’t know, maybe both. You’ll have to ask him.” 

“Alright, now, do you mind telling me how he got stabbed?” 

Brian hesitates. How does he explain something like this? He could tell her the truth and say Tim got jumped in his apartment. He could claim it was a burglar who ran off when Brian arrived. He could say he was wearing a mask so he didn’t get a good look at him.

_ Wait, what am I doing? Why am I still trying to protect Alex? I  _ know  _ what he’s capable of now, and Tim told me himself that Alex seemed to know exactly what he was doing. If Alex was telling the truth he could have already killed Seth, so  _ why am I still protecting him? 

He feels so disgusted with himself in that moment he can’t even answer the nurse. He knows she’s giving him a funny look, growing suspicious, but honestly he doesn’t care. 

_ If Alex goes to jail, no one else has to die.  _

It seems like the obvious solution and yet something is still bothering him…

“I’m not sure exactly what happened. I’d been out all night with friends. When I came home there was this guy in the apartment - we’re roommates, Tim and I - who bolted as soon as I showed up, and Tim was...well, like that. I didn’t even think about calling the police, I just grabbed him and brought him here.” 

“Speaking of the police, do you want to contact them? You don’t have to if you don’t want to for any reason, and we won’t say anything, but if you want them called, we can do that for you.” 

“I....yeah, go ahead and contact them,” Brian sighs, “That’s probably for the best.” 

“Ok, sounds good. Now we have some paperwork that needs to be filled out for Tim to be admitted, but since you’re not family we’ll just have to wait until Tim is out of surgery for that.” 

“Well, I can try. I at least know his birthday and address, if that helps at all.” 

“It’s alright, it can wait, but thank you. Why don’t you go sit down in the waiting room, and we’ll tell you if anything happens, ok?” 

Brian takes a deep breath and nods. 

“Alright. Thank you.” 

He walks out into the waiting room and sits back in one of the chairs. He runs his hand through his hair and closes his eyes for a second. His whole body feels heavy with exhaustion now that the adrenaline from earlier is wearing off. He could probably doze off right here, even in a chair as stiff as this. He realizes that probably isn't a great idea given the night they've had, but it’s not like Alex is going anywhere tonight. Not with a head injury anyway. He opens his eyes and looks around the waiting room again. Alex aside, he shouldn’t be falling asleep here anyway, just in case something else happens. 

He groans and sits forward, rubbings his eyes with his fingertips. He still can’t believe he’s here worrying about whether or not one of his friends is going to die because another one of his friends stabbed him. He never thought in a million years that something like this would happen. How long is it going to take for it to sink in that this is his reality now? When is he going to stop hoping that things will change and actually do something about it?

_ This is pathetic. How much time have we wasted? Tim was right from the beginning, and now Seth could be dead or dying somewhere and it’s all my fault, just because I didn’t want to believe Alex was capable of something like this.  _

He takes a deep breath as his eyes start to burn. 

_ This is my fault.  _

 

Everything around him seems blurry, and every sense feels out of focus. It’s like he’s underwater, and no matter how hard he tries, his legs just can’t move fast enough. He feels like he ought to know what he’s running from, but he can’t remember. Somewhere in the distance he thinks he hears a voice, he just can’t make out what they’re saying…

“Sir?” 

Brian sucks in a breath and snaps his eyes open. For a moment his heart can’t find a rhythm, and as his brain struggles back to consciousness he’s not sure where he is. His eyes land on the nurse standing in front of him and it all comes back. He takes a breath and relaxes. He rubs his eyes. 

“Sorry. I must have dozed off,” he mutters. 

“The police are here to talk to you,” the nurse says, “Do you need a minute?” 

“No, no, I’m ok,” he says as he gets up, “How’s Tim?” 

“Still in surgery. As soon as he has a room, I'll send someone to come get you,” she says. 

“Thanks. Where are the police?” 

“This way.”

They walk out of the emergency department and into a small side hallway lined with wooden doors. All the doors are shut with their lights turned off save for one. During the day Brian figures it's probably someone’s office, but right now it's looking more like a police station. 

The nurse introduces Brian to officers Lubbock and Davis. Lubbock seems young, not too much older than Brian. However, the way he stands - his arms crossed and eyes narrowed - gives Brian the impression that this guy has had to grow up fast. He’s probably seen more stabbings in the past month alone than Brian ever will. His partner, Davis, is older with graying hair and a full beard to match. He’s spread out in the rolling chair at the desk in the room, completely comfortable and probably more concerned about where his next cup of coffee is coming from than about chasing down an assailant. Still, Brian doesn't like the way he looks at him as he walks into the room, as if Davis is picking him apart and figuring out what Brian’s story is even before he has the chance to tell it. 

“Have a seat,” Davis says. 

Brian glances back to thank the nurse for bringing him down here, but she’s already gone. He looks back at the officers and sits down in a chair on the other side of the desk. 

“So, how much do you guys know already?” Brian asks. 

“Well, we know a man’s been stabbed in a possible home invasion, but you’ll have to fill in the rest,” Davis says, “Let’s start with your name.” 

“Brian.” 

“Brain what?” 

“Thomas.” 

“Alright, and what about your friend? It’s your friend who got stabbed, correct?” 

“Yeah. His name is Tim. Tim Wright.” 

“With a ‘w’?”

“Yeah.” 

Davis jots it down in a small notebook before looking back at Brian. 

“Alright, now start from the beginning.” 

Brian takes a breath. Just how much of the story should he include? How far back should he go? Any mention of a supernatural monster attacking them and wiping their memories will be met with annoyance and skepticism at best, but without it what reason can he give for Alex attacking them? A psychotic break would be easy enough to believe, but that feels too merciful. There’s no justice in Alex getting off on an insanity plea. Citing revenge or otherwise as a motive seems out of the question. Brian would have to come up with a larger story which would only complicate things and make the lie harder to sell. Money? People do stupid things for money all the time. Plus, pinning attempted robbery on Alex  _ and _ attempted murder would be such a simple yet satisfying way to rub a little salt in the wound.  

_ I wish I knew what really happened to Seth. Maybe I could get some justice for him if I could, but Alex never actually said that he killed him according to Tim. Assuming Tim is even remembering that conversation correctly. I should just keep it simple. _

“I was out most of the night with friends, just hanging out, and time really got away from us so it was pretty late when I finally started heading home. Tim and I are roommates, and he stayed in. When I came home I heard these weird noises coming from the apartment, like fighting, and I opened the door, and there was this guy in the living room. At first I wasn’t sure who it was, but when he turned around I saw his face, and, um, I knew him.” 

“You know his name?” Davis asks. 

“Alex Kralie.” 

“Ok, what was he doing there?” 

“I’m not sure. He could have been trying to rob us. He’s kind of a weird guy, and his roommates all left recently so he’s been struggling to pay his rent. Anyway, he ran for the door and I was startled so I just jumped back and let him get away, though maybe I should have fought back. I don’t know. I went in looking for Tim after that, and Alex had just stabbed him with a kitchen knife, so I grabbed him and brought him here fast as I could.” 

“Can you give me Alex’s description?” 

“Little taller than me. Brown-ish hair. Glasses.” 

“He done this kind of thing before?” 

“No, I don’t think so.” 

“Do you have any idea where he could be now?” 

“His house maybe. I can give you his address, but I can’t remember it off the top of my head. I’d have to look it up.” 

“That’s alright. If you don’t have it with you, we can probably find it back at the station.” 

“Ok, if you’re sure.” 

Davis closes his notebook and stands. 

“Is that it then?” Brian asks. 

“For now. We need to go back to the station and file a report, but we’ll be back when your friend wakes up to talk to him.” 

“Alright. Thank you, officers.” 

Brian stands and shakes Davis’s hand. As the officer’s turn around and walk down the hall, Brian takes a breath and drops the calm mask for a second. His head is throbbing, and he can’t stop overthinking everything. Did he let anything suspicious slip? Was his story believable? He should feel better now that the police have Alex’s name, but he doesn’t, and he doesn’t know why. He has to get in to talk to Tim as soon as possible about their story, but there’s no telling how long it’ll be before that’s possible. What is he supposed to do until then? 

He wants to sit down, but the lights in the office are hurting his eyes. The throbbing is turning into a sharp pain behind his eyes. He walks out into the hall, not heading anywhere in particular just as long as it’s somewhere darker. This day can’t be over fast enough. Eventually he ends up back in the ER waiting room. He sits back in the quietest corner he can find and puts the hood of his jacket up to block out what light he can. With nothing left to do, he prays in vain that the hours will go by quickly.

* * *

 

 

It doesn’t matter how many cases they work together or how many times Lubbock proves his worth as an officer, Davis will  _ always  _ leave all the paperwork to him. Every damn time. And every time his partner pulls the same BS on him, he considers just not doing it, but of course that would cost them time that could be spent tracking down a criminal, which in turn could cost him his job. There’s just no way out, and he hates it. Paperwork is the dumbest thing ever invented. 

Lubbock sighs as he finishes filling out the preliminary report about the latest stabbing incident. At least the tedious part is over. Now comes the slightly more interesting part: background checks. Starting with the victim. 

Timothy Wright is already in their system, though there isn’t much to go on. He was entered into their database about a year ago by a couple of officers. No charges were made, though the officers who brought him in reported finding him wandering a local park in a disoriented state. No drugs or alcohol involved, though there is a note on file from a local doctor indicating a history of mental illness that might have been a factor. As Lubbock looks through what they do have, he realizes why there’s so little to go on. Wright moved to this county a few years ago, probably for school, and everything that might be useful for a deeper background check is with another police department or in the state database. Lubbock decides to let it go since Wright is the victim in this case, though he files the information about Wright’s medical history away in his mind for future consideration. 

Next is Alex Kralie, the alleged assailant. There’s a driver’s license on file as well as an old speeding ticket, but beyond that there isn’t anything suggesting a criminal history. His record is completely clean. Lubbock does a search for Kralie’s name and license number in the state database, but again he turns up nothing. He frowns. Usually people who end up burglarizing homes and attacking the residents have  _ some  _ kind of history with the police. He digs a little deeper, trying to figure out if Kralie moved here from another state or something, but he doesn’t find anything that would indicate that. Far as he’s concerned, Kralie has lived here his whole life and has never caused any problems. He prints off what records they have and moves to the last name on his list. 

When he enters Brian Thomas’s name into the database, something immediately catches his eye. There’s an assault and battery charge on file from the past year, apparently occurring at a Walgreens in town. The victim, an employee, alleged that Thomas punched him “for no reason” after he made a comment about one of Thomas’s friends. Thomas didn't say in his statement what the employee said exactly, just that it was “seriously out of line.” The report doesn't go into a lot of detail since no formal charges were ever made, but it's enough to get the picture. Below that there's an old trespassing charge from a few years ago, probably when Thomas was still in high school. Again, there's not much detail, but it appears the group Thomas was with was exploring a forested area and the owner of the property called the police on them. Unfortunately there's no interview with Thomas specifically in the report. 

Lubbock frowns, but he doesn't want to make any assumptions just yet. He prints off Thomas’s file as well and puts it with Kralie’s in a folder. He wonders if Davis is back from whatever the hell he does while Lubbock is doing  _ actual  _ work. Thankfully, his partner isn’t planning on keeping him waiting today. As he goes out into the bullpen, he spots Davis sitting at someone’s desk, downing his second cup of coffee. At least, Lubbock  _ hopes  _ it’s only his partner’s second cup.

“Oh good, you’re done. I was about to go in and get you,” Davis says. 

“What is it?” Lubbock asks. 

“The hospital called. The fellow who got stabbed is out of surgery, but he still needs to be evaluated for a concussion and all that jazz. We won’t be able to see him until tomorrow at the earliest. You find anything on the perp?” 

“Not really. I’ve got a driver’s license, but that’s it. Kralie doesn’t have any kind of record in our system, or the state’s.”

“That’s a little strange.” 

“I thought so too.” 

“What about the victim and the guy we talked to?” 

“The vic, Wright, seems to have moved here from another state or at least another county pretty recently. No criminal record with us, though I can do a wider search if we need to. Possible history of mental problems, though we don’t have access to any of his records. Probably doesn’t have any bearing on the case if it is a burglary,” Lubbock says, “As for Thomas, I’ve got an assault and battery charge within the last year, which I thought was weird. There’s also a trespassing charge, but that’s older. Looks like just high school shenanigans.” 

“So the guy who told us about the alleged burglary is the only one with a criminal record?” 

“That’s correct.” 

“Interesting.” 

“I don’t think we should make any assumptions until we talk to Wright though. It looks like it was a one-off incident.” 

“Fair enough.” 

“Do you think Wright is going to be any help if he has a concussion?” 

“Not sure. I guess we’ll have to see what he says,” Davis says, getting up, “In the meantime, I think I’m going to give the hospital a call back. I think it’s fair to say Thomas is as much of a suspect as Kralie at this point, so he shouldn’t be allowed to speak to Wright until we’ve had the chance to.” 

“Alright. What do we do about him until then?” 

“Nothing we can do but hope he’s still there when we come back.” 

 

Lubbock doesn’t feel very confident about the value of this visit as they walk into Wright’s hospital room the next day. The man hardly looks to be in the right state of mind to be delivering an accurate testimony. The cuts and bruises on his face say enough to the average person, but Lubbock notices how distracted and exhausted he looks. It’s in the way his eyes flit around the room - dark and dull yet frantic - and in the half-moons he’s carved into his own hands with his nails. He blinks more often than he should, as if he’s fighting to keep his eyes open. As if he doesn’t trust anyone enough to keep his eyes closed for more than a second. Lubbock wonders if the doctors have given him a sedative that’s threatening to drag him down into unconsciousness, or at least into total complacency. Whatever it is, he seems to be fighting it with every breath and losing a little more each second. If Davis notices how uncomfortable Wright seems, he doesn’t do anything about it, and he jumps right into the introductions. 

“You're Tim, right?”

“Right.”

“Wright?”

“Um...yeah.”

“I'm Officer Davis, this is my partner, Lubbock. We hear you've had kind of a rough two days.”

“Yeah I kind of got stabbed.”

Davis continues on as if Wright never even spoke. 

“We just want to ask you a few questions about what happened. We’ll try to make this quick. Can you describe the incident for us?” 

“I’ll try.”

There’s a long pause as Wright takes a deep breath, trying to get everything straight in his head most likely. Lubbock starts to say that they can come back when he’s feeling more clear-headed, but Wright starts talking before he can. 

“I got attacked in my apartment. Guy came in. Not sure what he wanted.” 

“Do you have an idea?” 

“Money maybe? I don’t know.” 

“Do you think he was trying to kill you?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Did you see his face at all?” 

“No. He was wearing a mask.” 

Davis and Lubbock look at each other. Lubbock frowns. 

_ Hm.  _

“Did anyone else see him?” 

“No. It was late.” 

“Do you have any roommates maybe?” 

“No.” 

“What about the guy who brought you here? Brian?” Lubbock asks, cutting Davis off before he can ask his next question. 

“Um, he...I called him. After I got stabbed.” 

“You called Brian and not the police?” Davis asks. 

“I don’t have a car, and I don’t...I really hate hospitals.” 

“Alright well, I think we should pick this back up later and let you get some rest,” Davis says, “but thank you for your help.” 

“Yeah. Sure.” 

The nurse who let them in takes their place at Tim’s bedside as Lubbock and Davis walk out into the hallway. Davis gives Lubbock a look that isn’t difficult to decipher. Nothing adds up. Lubbock wants to launch into a conversation about it right away, but he knows they shouldn’t in such a public place. He keeps his mouth shut until they’re outside and in their squad car where they can talk safely. 

“Well, I think we’re going to have to take what Wright said with a grain of salt given how many drugs they’ve probably got him on. We probably should have saved this for tomorrow,” Davis says as he closes the car door behind him, “but I can’t say I’m ready to throw out what he told us just yet.” 

“Even with a concussion, you’d think he’d know if he had roommates or not,” Lubbock says, “The details of what happened during the burglary could be wrong because of the trauma, but I don’t think he’d forget a detail like who he’s living with, don’t you think?” 

“Exactly. This whole case just stinks to me. We need to find Thomas again.”


	10. Steel

“Mr. Thomas, can you give me the names of the people you were with the night Mr. Wright was stabbed? Can they confirm your story?” 

Officer Davis wastes no time. The minute the office door closes, he pounces. Brian’s mouth feels dry, and he buries his sweating hands deeper into his pockets. He knew this question would come up eventually, and he expected to be re-questioned by the police, but he didn’t expect it this soon. He thought he’d have at least another couple days to figure this out as well as a moment to speak to Tim, not 24 hours with no prep whatsoever. At least his migraine from yesterday is gone, though that doesn’t bring him much comfort. 

“Yeah, sure, but-.”

“But what, Mr. Thomas?”

Davis gives him a hard look, patiently waiting for Brian’s reply. Brian stares back, refusing to be bullied. 

“Alright, I get it. What are you really trying to do here? Something come up?” he asks. 

The officers glance at each other before Davis folds his hands on the desk and takes a breath. 

“Yesterday you told us you were Mr. Wright’s roommate, but this morning he told us that he didn't have any roommates,” he says. 

It takes a moment for Brian to even register what Davis is saying. Tim is awake. He spoke to the police. He's ok. He leans forward in his chair. 

“Wait Tim is out of surgery? How long has he had a room? Why didn't they tell me?”

“We asked the nurses not to, at least not until we had a chance to speak to him,” Davis says, “but that isn't the issue here. Why would Wright say he didn't have any roommates? Because even in his condition I find it hard to believe that he would forget something like that. I’m not a doctor or a philosopher, but last I checked this wasn't a movie and we were all real, so moderate concussions don't give people amnesia serious enough to forget who’s living in their own homes.” 

Brian is frozen in place, stomach churning with anxiety. A handful of things he could say run through his mind, but as he imagines them playing out, he realizes that each one ends with the officers only growing more suspicious. The contradiction in the statements is clear, and there’s nothing he can do to change that. 

_ But it was Alex. It was Alex, not me. I know what they're thinking and it wasn't me. How can I make them see that?  _

“I didn't attack him. I would never do something like this to him,” Brian says. 

“Yeah, you told us that Alex Kralie was responsible, but he doesn't have any kind of criminal record. You do.”

“What are you-?” 

Then he remembers. The Walgreens. Shit, he'd almost forgotten about that. He sighs and runs his hand through his hair. God, what a stupid thing. He can't even remember the employee’s name. He just remembers running into him while he was out picking up something from the store and striking up a conversation. He’d seen the guy around campus before and figured he'd say hello. That was his first mistake. 

He can't remember why Tim came up exactly. The employee had seen Tim and Brian together, and mentioned it. It started out innocent enough, but he said something that still makes Brian angry when he thinks about it. 

_ “How can you stand to be around him, man? Like I'm from the same town as him, a lot of kids from my school ended up here. He was in my class, and,” the employee scoffed, “dude has something going on. He’s impossible to talk to.” _

_ Brian bristled, but tried not to let his annoyance show. Instead he smiled like it was some kind of joke. _

_ “Are we talking about the same guy? Sure he’s quiet, but he's a good person when you get to know him.” _

_ “Nah, I don’t mean something like he’s shy or even that he’s a dick or whatever. I mean, like...he has  _ problems,”  _ the employee continued, “Like loco crazy problems, man. I heard a rumor going around that he got thrown in the nut house because he burned down a house or killed a dog or something. Someone said they saw him talking to himself one day, and if you tried to ask him about any of that stuff he’d just look at you like some kind of retard. I don’t know why they let a guy like that come to school with the rest of us. The guy’s a complete psychopath.”  _

Brian remembers having to keep his hand in a splint for weeks, waving away questions and lying about how he broke his hand. Still, the fear on the guy’s face whenever he spotted Brian on campus made the aches and pains worth it. Maybe the guy hadn’t learned anything. Maybe all Brian had done was make him more scared of Tim, but it didn’t matter. It felt good, and Brain hasn’t regretted his decision since. 

“I didn’t hit that guy for no reason,” Brian says, “I hit him because he called  _ Tim _ , who is my  _ friend _ , a psychopath.” 

“There’s nothing about that in the report,” Lubbock says, “I checked. The statements you and the employee gave the police don’t mention Tim by name at all.” 

“What, are you serious? I told the officer who showed up what the guy said. Did he just not write it down or something?” 

“Doesn’t really matter if we don’t have it on record, does it?” Davis says. Brian opens his mouth to speak, but Davis cuts him off as he continues, “And this isn’t the only interesting thing we dug up. After we talked to Wright, we did a little more digging into your history. And lo and behold, you’re not the only one in your family with a record. Do you know a Dorothy Thomas?” 

Brian casts his eyes to the floor and his mouth sets in a hard line. 

“‘Course you do,” Davis continues, “She’s your mother, correct?” 

“I don’t see how that’s relevant,” Brian says. 

“You should see her file. Theft, drug possession, assault and battery. Been in and out of jail plenty of times. Makes you wonder if she passed any of those habits on.” 

Brian takes a breath, but it isn’t the least bit calming. He curls his hands into fists. They just had to go there, didn’t they. Of course they’d rather go for an easy suspect that they can find rather than a normal looking one that they can’t. Lazy, shitty  _ bastards.  _

“What the  _ hell  _ is wrong with you people?” he grinds out. 

“I think a better question would be: ‘what the hell is wrong with  _ you?’ _ ” 

“I-,” Brian starts to argue, but he stops himself and takes a breath, “I’m done with this. If you want to try and pin this on me instead of going after the real suspect here, then I’m not going to help you.” 

“That’s fine, but you’re going to have to come with us to the station regardless.” 

Brian doesn’t answer. He glances away from the officer, fuming. He feels a tickle in his throat and suppresses a cough. Was the air this dry when he came in? He tries not to think about it. Davis sighs and stands up. 

“Alright, let’s go.” 

“Am I under arrest?” Brian asks. 

“I suppose you are, son.” 

“Are you serious? You can’t do that!” Brian says, getting to his feet, “Don’t you need a warrant or something?” 

“I’d say we have probable cause. You’re a potential danger to society.” 

“Potential dan-I’m not the one who attacked him! I would never-!” 

“Mr. Thomas, I’m going to have to ask you to calm down. Or am I going to have to charge you with resisting arrest as well?”

Brian blanks and goes silent. 

_ I can’t believe this. I can’t fucking believe this.  _

He doesn’t resist as Davis walks over to him and takes his handcuffs off his belt. He doesn’t listen as Lubbock reads him his rights, and instead focuses on trying not to throw up. Something inside him gives as Davis instructs him to hold his arms out, and the cold metal locks around his wrists. The reality of his situation comes crashing down on him at once. He realizes his legs are trembling though every other muscle holds the tension of a steel cable. The dryness in his throat becomes more insistent, and he coughs again as Davis guides him out of the office and into the hallway. 

_ This can’t be happening.  _

He stares at the ground as they go through a side entrance and out into the main hospital parking lot. The people they pass pause to stare as they let today’s sideshow go by. Brian hopes and prays that no one he knows is here, and he immediately feels like an idiot for thinking that. What does it matter what anyone thinks anymore? At this point, his old life is as good as dead. It has been ever since he woke up in that hospital with blood in his hair. He just didn’t want to acknowledge it. Otherwise it would have become real. 

The inside of the squad car smells stale and warm, and the bars on the windows make it feel inordinately small and stiff. He can't hear the officers very well as they get into the front seats, their voices muffled by the thick glass between him and them. Brian shrinks back into his seat and looks out the window, his heart pounding. He curls his hands into his fists and without thinking tries to put them in his pockets. He flinches as the handcuffs bite into his wrists in protest. He takes a deep breath, but his legs won't stop shaking. He coughs again. The adrenaline already coursing through him spikes. 

Where is it? He can feel it now. There's a whining in his ear and a throbbing ache in his skull. He knows he's not alone, but where is it? He looks out the window again, but all seems normal. For once he's grateful that he's in a car that will soon be taking him away from here. As if changing location will deter it for long. 

They drive in silence for ten minutes, though it feels like hours for Brian as he struggles to make sense of the terror humming in his chest. He always has a plan. Always knows where to go next, what threat to plan for. Right now it feels impossible, and his thoughts ping back and forth from one to the other without really making any progress. Alex. The police. That  _ thing _ . How can he possibly defend himself and Tim from all of them? His mind feels like it's in a compactor. He can't seem to get a breath in. When he starts coughing again he can't stop. 

One of the officers asks if he's ok, but he can't stop long enough to answer. He feels the car slow down and turn, and when he looks up again they're in an empty parking lot near a decrepit strip mall. Brian gasps for breath as Lubbock gets out and opens up the back seat. 

“Mr. Thomas, what's wrong?” he asks. 

Brian looks up as the fit lets up enough for him to get a breath in, and his eyes lock on something tall and dark just visible across the street. Watching him. The whining in his ear reaches a peak and the dull ache in his head turns into a vicious stab of pain. 

_ No no no no.  _

“I can't breathe. Let me out I can't breathe.”

He doesn’t expect Lubbock to actually listen to him, but to his surprise the officer takes a step back and lets Brian get out of the car just far enough to get some air. Davis says something along the lines of “Lubbock what are you doing?” but the question comes too late. Brian has an opening. 

He slams into Lubbock, and immediately sprints around and away from the car towards the strip mall. The air grates against his throat with every breath, and his legs feel like they’ll give any minute now, but he keeps running regardless. The officers shout, and he can hear their footsteps pounding on the pavement behind him. 

_ What am I doing what am I doing I can’t outrun them what am I doing _

He runs past the end of the mall and down a short slope to a smaller parking lot in the back. He stumbles and nearly runs right into a parked car, but he manages to keep his feet. 

_ I’ll hide in that neighborhood. Surely I can lose them there.  _

He reaches the end of the street and runs around the corner. He can’t tell if the officers are still behind him. He can’t hear anything except the blood rushing in his ears and his own ragged breathing. He runs across the street and bolts between two houses. At the back is a chain link fence, and as he races towards it he feels certain he’s not going to make it over the thing with his hands cuffed together. He doesn’t have any choice but to try though. He grabs onto the top and heaves himself up. The metal snags his clothes as he manages to swing one leg over the fence. He doesn’t even get the chance to try and reorient himself before his momentum carries him over the top and into the next yard. 

He’s stunned for a second as his body hits the turf, but he knows he doesn’t have time to waste. He pulls himself up again and continues running, crashing through bushes until he’s on the next street. He coughs again, but not as violently as before. As he darts between two more houses, he looks back for any sign of his pursuers. 

His feet skid on some gravel surrounding a small shed, and he falls to his knees. The small stones gouge his hands, and he sucks in a sharp breath as he pulls himself behind the small building. He tries to stop himself from breathing so loud, but he can’t seem to get enough air. He listens for footsteps or shouting, but he hears nothing. Sees nothing. He looks for the faceless creature, but he doesn’t see it either. The pounding in his head starts to subside. 

_ Did they give up? I didn’t think I’d lose them this quickly.  _

Reluctantly he gets to his feet and looks around the shed towards the street. Still, nothing. After a moment’s hesitation, he turns and keeps running through the yard towards the next street. He’s lost them for now, but he knows he’s not out of danger yet. The day isn’t over. 

_ Where can I go? I don’t know where I am, I don’t have my car. I can’t go back home. I’m not risking it. So where am I supposed to go now?  _

As he turns another corner, he slows down and ducks behind some bushes. He looks down at the cuffs around his wrists and sighs. And then there’s these things. How is he going to get them off? The chain looks too thick to try and cut off, and even if it wasn’t, doing that by himself would be a challenge. Picking the lock somehow seems to be his best bet, though if he gets desperate he supposes he could always dislocate his thumb. He shudders a bit at the thought, but he realizes that if he had to he would do it. The idea of doing it himself makes him feel a little sick, but it wouldn't be the worst injury he's sustained over the years.

_ Think about that later. Right now I need to find a better hiding place.  _

The neighborhood is quiet right now, which Brian considers a miracle. He expects to see kids playing outside or at least one guy mowing his lawn, but the neighborhood is quiet and abandoned. Sparrows flitting over the pavement, hunting for any food they can find, are the only life-forms he sees. His scans the ground with his eyes, looking for anything that might help him jimmie the cuffs, but all he sees are small, weak twigs and a few leaves. No paperclips or pins, not even a stray coin. He keeps moving. 

The next street he turns on is wider than the others with fewer houses and more parking. Before long he spots an elementary school on the other side. Like the rest of the neighborhood, it’s abandoned. Closed for the summer. He makes a run for it across the road and heads for the school’s small playground where there’s bound to be a few discarded items lying around. If he’s lucky, maybe there'll be something small he can use. He figures it’s at least worth a try. 

Up close the building is unsettling. The windows are dark, and inside Brian can see desks shoved up against the walls and shelves covered with dust cloths. There are no craft-paper creations hanging up on the walls or books sitting out. No name tags on the classroom chore chart, no forgotten lunch boxes. Just dim sunlight and dejected silence. He looks away from the window and continues to the playground as memories of his own school days play back in his head. 

What a different world that was. Back before he knew how screwed up everything really was. Back when he still called Dorothy “Mom” and he thought his dad might come home any day now. He remembers trading lunches with other boys who have probably all left the state by now. Dorothy always packed him baby carrots. Thought he ate them all every day, when really he just traded them away for grapes. Hayden hated grapes for some reason, but he would always eat carrots. At recess, kickball was always their favorite. Joey got hit in the face with the ball once, but he didn’t cry at all even when his lip started bleeding. Brian wonders where he learned that. 

Brian sits down on a painted tire near the swings and takes a moment to breathe. He doesn’t have time to be wallowing in nostalgia. The longer he stays, the greater chance someone will see him and notice something is off. He looks down at the loose stones covering the ground, but he doesn’t see anything lying around. Not in this particular spot anyway. He gets up and goes from fixture to fixture in the playground, pushing rocks around with his shoe until finally he spots something he might be able to use. 

He crouches down and fishes a small barrette out of the rocks. About half of its purple coloring is scratched off, but it feels sturdy. As he looks at the cuffs, he feels he has a decent chance of fitting the thin end into the lock. He sits down under a large slide and gets to work. 

Brian never expected to escape the cuffs quickly, but as he sits on the ground, twisting his wrists into increasingly more awkward positions, he realizes just how many tries this is going to take. His hands get tired too quickly for his liking, and though the barrette is fairly wide and sturdy, it doesn’t seem to want to find the pin. Finally he stops and sighs, rotating his wrists as best he can to work some of the stiffness out. 

_ I should go somewhere else to do this if this is going to take a while.  _

He sticks the barrette into the pocket of his jeans and gets up. The playground is as empty as before, but now he can’t stop imagining someone turning the corner around the building and spotting him. On the other side are houses and yards where someone could have seen him through a window. The paranoia is like an itch in the center of his brain, pulsing behind his eyes, and he wonders if his headache is coming back. 

He leaves the school behind, wondering where he should go now. A drainage tunnel maybe? That’s quiet, out of the way. No one is going to be down there in the middle of the day. He just needs to find one that isn’t full of water or too small. He goes back out onto the street, looking for signs of drainage ditches. 

He has to venture deeper into the neighborhood, and as the streets turn from nice, interconnected blocks into winding, irregular stretches of road, he wonders if maybe he should just go back. In the end he decides against it. The houses here are more spread out, so there could be more places to hide and less of a chance that someone will find him. Then he spots an unusual slope on the corner of an intersection and a piece of chain link fence that doesn’t seem to connect to anything. Finally. 

The tunnel is long and dark. Brian can't see the other side, which doesn't sit well with him. Gravel crunches under his feet as he ventures further in. Small side tunnels branch off the main one, pitch black and gaping. He tries not to imagine something coming out of them. The darkness starts to subside as he goes around the bend. At first he doesn't see anything and he picks up his pace. He regrets it immediately as the other end of the tunnel comes into full view. The smell of cigarette smoke reaches his nose, and he spots the figure leaning against the side of the tunnel, looking his way. 

“Hey, join the party,” the man says. 

Brian freezes. He tells his legs over and over again to run, but he can't move. 

_ Shit.  _

“You ok? You look kinda-oh.”

The stranger notices the handcuffs. Brian takes a step back. 

“Look, I don't want any trouble,” Brian says. 

“I’d say you already found some.”

“Yeah and I don't want any more.”

The stranger studies him for a moment, and Brian can't help but wonder what he sees. Brian holds his hands out away from his body, trying to appear as defensive and non-threatening as possible. He wonders if he looks as scared as he feels. The stranger shrugs. 

“Ain't gonna find any from me. I won't knock a man when he's down,” the stranger says, “Not unless you were beatin’ on your girlfriend or something. Then I might be tempted.”

“No, no, nothing like that.”

The stranger takes another drag from his cigarette and drops it on the ground. He grinds it out with his shoe. Brian takes a breath, though his heart is still racing. 

“What did they get you for, then?” the stranger asks, “Drugs?”

“It was a mistake.” 

The stranger gives a bitter laugh. 

“Don’t I know about that.” 

“You’ve been arrested before?” 

“Oh, no, not me. My brother has before, though. Just minding his own business, and some asshole cops decided to hassle him. Haven’t heard of something like that happening to a white person though.” 

“Guess you still haven’t,” Brian says, “My friend got attacked, and since they think the guy who actually did it is a model citizen, they decided to pin it on me. They don’t even have any real evidence, or at least they didn’t bother to fabricate any.” 

“That’s rough, man. And probably illegal. I’d say you should talk to a lawyer, but that’s gonna be tough if you booked it out of there. Should’ve stayed put.” 

Brian sighs. 

“I don’t have time for all that. I have bigger things to worry about.” 

“That’s cool, man, I understand. Your friend ok?” 

“I don’t know. I hope so.” 

“Me too, man. That’s all you need right?” 

Brian snorts. 

“Yeah, no kidding.” 

The stranger gestures at Brian’s cuffs. 

“What are you going to do about those?” 

“Pick ‘em I guess. Think you can help? I hate to ask, but I've been trying, and it's not exactly going as planned.” 

“Eh, maybe. Can’t say I know much about it, but hell, they do it all the time in movies, right?” 

The stranger walks towards him, and for a moment they’re both tense as they wonder what the other might do. If the other could be lying. For a second neither of them move. They just look at each other. Brian clears his throat and holds his wrists up, deciding he’s not in much of a position to be refusing help out of paranoia. The stranger relaxes and turns his attention to the cuffs. 

“You got something to pick these with?” he asks. 

“Yeah, hang on.” 

Brian puts his hands down and reaches into his pocket for the barrette. 

“You think that’ll work?” the stranger asks. 

“I don’t know. I figured it was worth a try.” 

The stranger takes the barrette, looks at it and the lock, and he shrugs. He takes a hold of the cuff on Brian’s left wrist and turns it so he can get at the lock better. He sticks the barrette in the lock and wiggles it around, but he seems to have the same problem Brian did. 

“I think this is too wide. You got like a bobby pin?” 

“No, I found this on the ground.” 

“I might have one of those. My girlfriend leaves stuff at my house all the time,” the stranger says, “You stay here, I’ll be right back. I won’t call the cops, man. You seem like a decent guy to me.” 

“Thanks, I appreciate it.” 

“Kay. Give me two seconds.” 

The stranger turns and disappears out the tunnel entrance, and the ache in Brian’s feet and the heaviness in his legs return. He sits down on the floor of the tunnel and leans his head against the side. The cement is cold despite the warm day, and it quickly begins drawing the heat out of his back and legs. He wonders briefly if he should just take off rather than risk it, but he dismisses that idea almost immediately. He doesn’t have any more fight left in him. If the cops come, the cops come. It won’t matter if he runs now. They’d catch up to him sooner or later. Instead of closes his eyes for a moment and lets the chill of the tunnel draw him down like a weight.

* * *

 

 

His plan was stupid. He’ll admit that. Brian and Tim told him as much, but he’s glad he didn’t listen to them. The proof they were looking for is out there now. It’s burned on a tape in a camera somewhere and carved into his skull in blood. Every detail, no matter how foggy, has been written down in shaky handwriting in his notebook which gets messier by the day. He knows he needs to do more to protect the information - he considered rewriting it in code - but right now his eyes won’t stop shifting and blurring long enough for him to focus. He looks at the clock and realizes he’s almost spent the entire day in bed again. He supposes it doesn’t matter. He’s supposed to be dead after all. After what happened in that building, he doubts Alex believes he survived. 

_ Which is how it’s going to stay.  _

He sits up and coughs a few times. He head starts throbbing again, but he ignores it. He goes to the bathroom, wondering if there will be blood this time. Seems there’s always blood lately. He coughs again over the sink and takes a drink of water. It seems to alleviate the fit for the moment. He wipes water droplets from his mouth and looks at himself in the mirror. As he looks at his bruises and scrapes, shaggy hair and dead eyes, he doesn’t feel sorry. Doesn’t even feel sad or angry. He accepts it. Welcomes it. It’s proof he survived. It’s not something he thought he could do. After all, he’s always been considered the weakest link. The most clueless member of the friend group. The guy you bring along with you because you have to, not because you really care for his company. Just the nice kid who no one minds and everyone feels sorry for. That’s always been his role in society, his niche, his whole identity, but that’s not who he is anymore. He fought for his life against things that should have been impossible, and you know what? He _won._ He _lived._ Who did that? It can’t be Seth. Meek, humble Seth who crumpled like tinfoil under pressure couldn’t have done what he did. Couldn't have fought this hard to survive. So who did? Who’s left? 

_ Alright, you killed Seth. Good for you, pat yourself on the back. But let’s face it. He wasn’t much of a challenge. I’m coming back for you, and this time? I won’t lose.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Walgreens incident is inspired by this post: http://i-want-it-on-fire.tumblr.com/post/123990111399/ok-but-why-would-brian-get-kicked-out 
> 
> So I have a lot of headcanons for Brian since we don’t know much about him, but I always thought that the reason Tim and Brian’s friendship was so strong despite them not knowing each other for long is because they weren’t so different when you got down to it. I always imagined that they had pretty similar issues: shitty parents, mental health issues, etc. Brian’s were just a lot more subtle and he hid them well, so all anyone ever saw was the charming actor who made friends with everyone. Never the depressed kid without any real family. 
> 
> As for his mom, there’s a part in Entry 84 where Alex asks Brian for his full name, and Brian says that “Brian” IS his full name. That always bothered me, because of course he could just be joking around, but it’s kind of an odd joke to make. Like he doesn’t take pride in his family name, or at least doesn’t claim any ownership over it. I always wondered why that might be, and having shitty parents would do it. Usually you get your father’s name, and if you don’t want your father’s name you take your mother’s, but if his dad was absent and his mother was terrible, Brian would be unhappily stuck with her last name without any real option to change it. All he could do at that point was try to distance himself from that name as much as possible, hence why he doesn’t use it. So yeah, just some thoughts I had about why this chapter is the way it is.


	11. Dead Air

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter feels kinda short - idk I'm never good at judging the length of my own chapters - but the next one might be kind of long and I didn't want to cram like 50,000 things into one chapter, so here you go. Little appetizer. I'll try to get the next one up quickly since I keep leaving you hanging, but school has started up again so I promise nothing.

“Ok man, let’s hope this works.”

Brian sits up straight as his strange new ally comes back into the tunnel holding a black bobby pin in his hand. He pauses and gives Brian a funny look, wondering why he’s suddenly on the ground.

“You feeling ok?” he asks. 

“Yeah, I’m just...tired,” Brian says, “By the way, I don't think you ever told me your name.”

“Ian. I'm not even gonna ask yours. That way I can't say I saw you.”

Brian laughs.

“Fair enough.”

Ian kneels next to Brian, and Brian presents his wrists. Ian pulls the bobby pin open and goes to work trying to turn the pin in the lock in just the right way that will release the catch, but he makes very little progress. For a moment it looks like he’s going to get it, but again the pin slips and nothing happens. Ian sighs. 

“I’m not gonna lie to you, man, I have no idea what I’m doing here. Do you know how to do this?” 

“If I did I wouldn’t need your help.” 

“True, true. Maybe I should look this up or something. They’d have that on the Internet, right? You can find just about anything on the Internet.” 

“Can the Internet tell me why my life is such a mess?” Brian mutters. 

Ian laughs. 

“If it could do that you probably wouldn’t be here.” 

He stands and helps Brian to his feet. 

“You know, I told myself I would help you as long as I didn’t have to let you into my house - safety, you understand - but at this point, trying to get this figured out without letting you in would just take too long. You promise not to try anything?” 

“My word probably doesn’t mean much in this situation, but yeah of course. I’d have to be a complete idiot to piss off the person trying to help me out,” Brian says. 

“No kidding,” Ian says, “My house is like two seconds away, come on.” 

The crunch of gravel and sharp thud of shoes on concrete echo down the tunnel as they walk out into the muddy grass beyond the tunnel entrance. Brian looks around to see if there could be anyone watching them, but Ian doesn’t seem concerned. They head down the shallow ditch a short way before walking up a slope into a yard Brian assumes is Ian’s. The house is painted a faded blue, and Brian can see dents in the wood and chips in the paint from years and years of hail-bearing storms. The grass is mowed, but in corners by the back porch and along the scrubby flower beds are patches that grow taller than Brian thought was possible for basic green grass. Mismatched lawn chairs sit on the porch along with a grill that looks like it hasn’t been used in ages. The shade on the back door is open, offering Brian a glimpse into a cluttered but not unuseable living room. 

They walk up the steps onto the back porch and Ian opens the sliding door. Brian steps inside and looks around at the clothes and dishes lying around. There’s a TV and a game console on a table in front of the couch. They appear to be the only things in the room that are treated with any respect judging by the games’ careful organization and the dearth of garbage anywhere near the console.

“You play?” Ian asks. 

“Not really my thing,” Brian says. 

“Not even Guitar Hero?”

Brian laughs. 

“Trust me, my friends have tried. I’m terrible at it. I at least have an excuse, though. My buddy, Tim, is a music major, and he sucks just as much as I do.” 

His smile drops for a moment as he remembers where he is. 

“He’s, ah, the friend the police think I stabbed.” 

“Stabbed? Dude, what on earth are you mixed up in that your friend the music major ended up getting stabbed? Does he owe money to a drug dealer?” 

“It’s a long story.” 

“We might have time if I can’t get those cuffs off of you. My computer’s back here.” 

They go deeper into Ian’s small house and into his bedroom. It’s even more of a mess than the living room. Ian pushes some clothes off his bed and onto the floor, giving Brian and place to sit. He sits down at a desktop computer just across from the bed and opens up a search engine to begin his hunt for enlightenment. After a few minutes he pulls up a website and starts reading. He murmurs quietly to himself, going over the instructions. 

“Ok, dude, let’s try this again, I think I got it,” he says, standing up and taking the bobby pin out again. 

This time Ian seems more sure of himself as he twists the pin around in the lock. For a moment Brian is sure it’s not going to work. Then Ian pauses, and his face lights up. 

“Hang on hang on hang on, I got this. I feel the pin. Just...one…” 

_ Click.  _

“Yeah, that’s what I’m talking about! Ok, now the other one. There’s usually two pins you gotta hit,” Ian says, jiggling the bobby pin in the lock some more, “Oh, and don’t squeeze those cuffs no more. The lock I just released is what keeps them from clamping down too tight.”

_ Click, _

The cuff releases, and Brian breathes a sigh of relief. He looks at Ian who is grinning from ear to ear. 

“Who’s the man?” 

Brian laughs. 

“You the man.” 

“Pound it!”

Ian holds his fist out for a fist bump which Brian accepts with enthusiasm. 

“I’m so glad that worked. I thought I was going to have to dislocate my thumb,” Brian says. 

“Yeah that would have sucked ass,” Ian says, “Now let’s get that other one off you, and you should be good to go.” 

It takes even less time for him to get the second cuff off. As the heaviness of the metal around his wrists disappears, Brian feels a rush of relief, and the tension in his gut finally dissolves. 

“Thank you so much,” Brian says, “You really saved my ass, man.” 

“No problem, dude.” 

Ian stands and heads for the door. 

“Hey, lemme make you a sandwich or something before you bug on out of here,” he says. 

Brian gets up and follows him. 

“You don’t need to do that, really,” he says, though he admits to himself that food sounds really good right about now. 

“I don't mind. I'm guessing you still have a long way to go, and showing your face in a McDonald's might not go down so well.” 

“Heh, that's the truth.” 

Ian goes into the kitchen and starts rummaging through his fridge for ingredients. Brian leans against the counter and puts his hands in his pockets. He looks down at the counter where Ian set the handcuffs and wonders if maybe he should take them. No telling if they might be useful later. Gingerly he reaches out and slips the cuffs into the pocket of his jacket. He prays he won't have to use them. 

“What do you like?” Ian asks, setting two pieces of bread down on a paper towel. 

“I'm not picky,” Brian says. 

“Turkey and cheese ok?”

“Sounds awesome.” 

He pauses as a sudden burning sensation floods his throat. He tries, but he can't suppress the coughing fit that follows. At first he thinks maybe it's just a normal cough, as light as it is, but he's never been so lucky. As the light coughs fall deeper into his chest, he finds he can't stop. He grips the counter, knuckles white, and gasps for air. He feels an insistent throbbing behind his eyes, and every light around him is so bright, too bright. It’s like staring into the sun. The lining of his throat feels like it’s tearing open, and he tastes copper on his tongue. He hears Ian’s panicked voice next to him, asking if he’s ok, as he coughs up blood into his hands. 

“Dude, shit,  _ shit!  _ Holy  _ shit!”  _ Ian splutters. 

It’s here. Outside the window, not ten feet away. Waiting for him as casually as one waits in line at the grocery store. 

_ Oh god  _ fuck.

“Run,” he gasps. 

“What the fuck are you talking about?! You need  _ help!”  _

_ “Run!”  _

He grabs Ian’s arm, not giving the other man room to object. Ian resists at first, but then he relents and follows Brian out the screen door and across the yard. Brian’s lungs burn, and he continues to cough even as they run down the drainage ditch towards the tunnel. Ian’s frantic questions change from “what’s wrong with you?!” to “what was that thing?!” Brian swears internally. 

_ He saw it. Shit, of course he saw it.  _

The sound of their footsteps as they run through the tunnel is deafening. The adrenaline still rages through Brian’s body, but its effects are waning. He can feel his strength being sapped away with every step, despite his desperate need to keep going. He’s exhausted. He can’t keep running. He physically cannot keep running. He can’t breathe, and oh God there’s so much blood in his mouth, he can’t breathe he can’t breathe. 

His steps falter, and he lets go of Ian. Ian runs ahead a few more steps before realizing his companion is falling behind. He stops and runs back. He’s breathing heavily and his eyes are wild with fear, but it’s that fear that’s going to keep him alive. Brian wishes there was enough of that energy for the both of them. Brian coughs again and stops completely, bracing himself against the wall of the drainage tunnel. 

“No, no, come on man, don’t do this to me,” Ian says. 

Brian draws a ragged breath and looks Ian in the eye. 

“Don’t worry about me. Please... _ go, _ ” he says. 

Ian hesitates, but common sense overtakes him and he turns and bolts. As he disappears into the darkness, Brian feels his knees buckle and he slides to the gritty floor, chest heaving as he fights to stay conscious despite the pounding of blood in his ears and the forking of lightning through his temples. He looks behind him, knowing what he’ll see. He barely catches a glimpse of the figure before the throbbing pain causes red and black to pulse across his vision, blocking out any remaining light around him. He prays for the darkness to take him as he lays on the ground, choking on his own breath, and after several seconds of agony, it obliges.

* * *

 

 

Tim wishes he had healing powers. Then he could seal up this stupid hole in his stomach and get the fuck out of here. There isn’t a single thing he can look at or action he can perform that doesn’t give him some kind of anxiety. The thin sheets, the pressure of the pulseox on his finger, the touch of the IV line on his skin, the smell of disinfectant, the nurse’s fake chipper voice trying to stay friendly and positive. Everything bothers him, dragging up old memories and feelings he’d rather forget. He hates how much pain medication they have him on and how hard it makes it to keep his guard up and his thoughts straight, but at the same time he realizes it's probably the only thing keeping him from ripping his IV out and making a break for it. At least they stopped trying to sedate him, but only after he begged them to, promising he wouldn't try to fight them and that he honestly felt fine. That last part was a lie, but he doesn't care. He’ll endure the aches and jolts of pain every time he moves if it means he can keep his wits about him. 

He doesn’t know where Brian is, but every time he thinks about his short conversation with the police he gets a sour feeling in his gut. The police shouldn’t have any reason to give Brian trouble, and yet...there was something about the way they looked at him when he was telling his story. Something suspicious in their eyes and in how few questions they asked before they left, looking at each other as if they were thinking the exact same thing. 

Of course, that could have been the drugs, too. 

The next time a nurse comes in - there are always nurses coming in - he makes a point to ask about his friend. 

“There was someone else with me,” he says, “Does he know I’m here? It’s been almost two days and I haven’t seen him yet.” 

The nurse pauses, thinking. 

“Well we haven’t seen anyone looking for you,” she says. 

“But does he even know I’m out of surgery?” 

“I’m sorry, sir. If I was supposed to tell someone about that, the nurse who worked the shift before me would have written it down somewhere.” 

Tim sighs. 

“Can you check the waiting rooms? His name is Brian. He’s about my age. Brown hair. I think he was wearing a black jacket,” he pauses and blinks, “Or maybe it was blue. I can’t remember.” 

“I’ll ask around. You just get some rest, ok?” 

“Yeah, sure,” he mutters, knowing full well he won’t be able to. 

 

Tim bristles immediately when he sees the officers from yesterday morning walk into his room. He hates hospitals most of all, but cops are a close second. Callous bastards who don’t stop to think about other people’s feelings for more than a second. It’s all about one of two things: the glory of catching the bad guy or getting their job over with so they can collect their paycheck and go home. That’s certainly the only thing the cops he’s met cared about. How many times did the hospital send police after him as a child? How many times did unfeeling men grab him and drag him back there without so much as a kind word to calm him down? How many of them looked at him and saw nothing but a troubled, problem child who would never cause people anything but pain? Cops are useless. 

“Afternoon, Mr. Wright,” the older officer says. Tim struggles to remember his name. His eyes land on his name tag. Davis. Sure. Whatever. Tim doesn’t say anything in response to the greeting. If his silence is at all off-putting, Davis doesn’t show it. 

“We’ve just got a few more questions for you, if you’re feeling up to it,” Davis continues, “Specifically about your friend, Brian.” 

“What about him?” Tim asks carefully. 

“What is he like? As a friend, I mean,” Davis says, “You trust him?” 

“Of course I trust him. I called him instead of you, remember?” 

“He ever been violent towards you?” 

“What the hell kind of question is that?” 

“You don’t need to try and protect him, son. I understand the compulsion, but this is very serious.” 

“There’s no compulsion,” Tim says, “He’s the best friend I have. What are you even talking about? Where is he?” 

“Look, there’s no way to sugar coat this,” Davis says, “We tried to take him to the station for questioning, and he put up a fight. Bolted and disappeared. Man like that with a history like his has to have something to hide.” 

Tim just stares at him for a moment. Brian... _ ran from the police?  _

“Wha-...You’re sure we’re talking about the same Brian,” he says. 

“Is Brian the one who assaulted you, Tim?” 

“No! Obviously not! And I’m not saying that to protect him, I’m saying that because it’s the truth!” 

“You’re absolutely certain? You did say your attacker was wearing a mask last we talked to you.” 

“Yeah, I’m pretty fucking sure.” 

_ Useless!!  _

“Look,” Tim continues, “Brian is a dead end. He’s not the one responsible, regardless of his ‘history’ or whatever else you think you have on him.” 

Davis sighs. 

“We’re just covering all our bases, son,” he says. 

“Yeah well consider this one covered. Now get out of my room. We’re done here.” 

 

Tim leaves Brian five voicemails. 

_ Thursday, 1:39 pm _

_ Brian, it’s Tim. I know the police wouldn’t let you see me so...I guess I’m calling to tell you I’m ok. I’m on like a thousand different medications right now, but I guess I’m used to that. If you can, call me back. I have no idea where you are, I just know what the police told me. That you ran away or something. I know you probably can’t come anywhere near here right now because of that so just...let me know if you’re ok. Bye. *click* _

_ Thursday, 6:57 pm _

_ Hey, it’s Tim again. I’m sorry if you’re in a position where you can’t actually call me back but...I don’t know. I’m just...worried, I guess. I don’t know what else I can say. Sorry. *click* _

_ Friday, 1:24 am _

_ Brian...please, I just need to talk to you for like a minute. I’m starting to lose my mind in here, and I just keep...I just keep thinking about that  _ place  _ and my mom...and I’m realizing now that I don’t have my medication. They don’t have that stuff on file because my records are with another doctor. Who knows how long it’ll take to get any of that sorted. It could take days, and I keep thinking I’m going to have a seizure in here and they won’t be able to help me. Please just call me back. *click*  _

_ Friday, 4:31 am  _

_ If you’re somewhere safe, you’re probably asleep right now, but...I don’t know. They keep waking me up to make sure I’m doing ok, and I just need to hear someone say something other than “what’s your pain level right now?” And I’m sorry about that last voicemail. I’m really...I mean I’m not exactly fine, but I am feeling better. I’ve been trying to distract myself as best I can.....I’m still worried about you. Please be careful. *click* _

_ Friday, 9:55 am  _

_ I didn’t tell the police about Alex, by the way. I figured they wouldn’t be able to do anything about him, and I guess I was right since they’re probably still looking for you. Although maybe if I had told them about him, they wouldn't be after you in the first place. Still, that one officer, Davis, is such an asshole. I hope they haven’t caught you somehow, and that you’re not answering your phone because the battery is dead or something. I’ll stop bothering you for a bit. I’ll call you if anything else happens. Bye. *click* _

 


	12. Static

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *looks at last update*  
> *looks at calendar*  
> Oho buddy I am so sorry
> 
> On another note! HOLY SHIT I'm almost to 50,000 words?!? I checked this out and apparently this thing is, as of this chapter, almost long enough to be considered a novel by NaNoWriMo. I just...!!!!! I cannot believe I’ve gotten this far with this thing. Thank you so so so much to everyone who reads and comments on this, because honestly I appreciate it so much. You have no idea how motivational it is when someone leaves a kudos or even says “can’t wait for the next chapter!” in the comments. You guys are AMAZING. Here’s to the next 50,000 words (although if it honestly gets that long I might have to make a series out of this instead lol.)

His neck feels stiff. His skin feels tight and sticky. There’s a lingering ache in his head, but taken into perspective, it’s barely a nuisance. His blood feels like it’s made of stone, and moving his limbs even a small distance feels like pushing a semi truck uphill. His hand grazes against something rough, and as he opens his eyes, he realizes his arm is hanging off of a couch, just touching the carpet below. 

_ Where the hell am I?  _

Brian feels life return to his limbs and he pushes himself up off the couch. A bloom of color flashes across his vision, and for a moment he feels lightheaded. The feeling passes quickly as he sits up and rubs his eyes. He groans and takes a moment to breathe and get his bearings before looking up at the room around him. He realizes immediately that he’s in Tim’s living room. He doesn’t remember arriving, but at this point the memory’s existence would be more surprising than its absence. 

He stands up and peers out the window. The sky is overcast, and the parking lot below is empty. He checks the front door and finds that it’s locked. He frowns. Did he do that? He’s sure Alex wouldn’t have thought to when he left with Tim. Still, however it got that way, he’s glad for it. He returns to the living room feeling a tiny bit safer. 

As he sits down on the couch again, he realizes there’s no point in trying to remember what happened. He knows those missing memories won’t return, and he doesn’t have a recording to help him this time. All he has is a memory of fleeing Ian’s house before everything gets faded and dark. That’s all he’ll ever have now. The thought pains him, but there’s nothing he can do about it. He runs his hand through his hair. There’s something else nagging at him…

_ Tim.  _

He immediately reaches for his phone, but as he goes to switch it on, he realizes the battery is dead. Probably drained by the creature and its weird influence on technology. The same thing happened when he and Tim woke up in that abandoned hospital, though he didn’t realize it right away. He huffs and shoves his phone back in his pocket. He’ll have to go back to his house for his charger. 

_ Where Alex could be waiting for me.  _

Would he really try the same trick twice? Despite his apprehension, Brian realizes that he probably wouldn’t. He knows his targets will be far more cautious now, and he knows that he’s not invincible in a fight. Having his ass handed to him will probably make him more cautious for a little while. Realistically, Brian’s house is probably as safe as it’ll ever be right now. 

His stomach growls, interrupting his thoughts. He wonders how long it’s been since he actually ate anything. He sighs. Probably not since Alex attacked them. He hardly even noticed. It doesn’t surprise him though. It’s not like he hasn’t done it before. He debates stealing something from Tim’s kitchen, but he decides not to. He has to go home anyway. Might as well eat his own food. He heads for the door, but he stops as a thought occurs to him. 

_ Tim’s medication. He probably didn’t get a chance to grab it.  _

The refills aren’t hard to find, but Brian makes sure to check Tim’s bedroom and the bathroom thoroughly just in case he missed any bottles. In all, he finds two extras and pockets them before leaving the apartment and heading back out onto the street. 

He keeps the hood of his jacket up as he walks and prays that no police officers drive by. He wonders how much time has passed since blacking out in that drainage tunnel. It was the afternoon when he found Ian, and now it looks like late evening. At most, it looks like he was gone a few hours. His escape will still be fresh in the mind of every officer who heard about it. If he’s not careful, he’ll get picked up again, and this time he doubts he’ll be able to escape again. It would take an insane stroke of luck. 

He’s extremely thankful as he ducks down side roads and through groves of trees that he and Tim live fairly close together. Otherwise this trip would be far more awful than it already is. He realizes, though, that he will have to walk to the hospital eventually to retrieve his car. Assuming it’s still there whenever he finally gets around to it. He pushes that thought to the back of his mind. One thing at a time. 

When he finally reaches his house, he feels a rush of relief. He checks out all the rooms inside just to be safe, but by then his guard is already well down. He feels more relaxed and in control of things than he has in days. He only hopes the feeling lasts. It’s something he sorely missed. 

He retrieves his phone charger from his room and plugs his phone in next to the stove as he goes about finding something to eat. His phone is silent for a while as it builds enough charge to even turn on, but as he finishes making himself a sandwich, he hears it beep at him. It’s probably just Tim wondering where he is, he reasons, but another part of his brain keeps asking him if he’s sure that’s all it is. He tries to keep eating his sandwich and relax for just  _ one minute,  _ but he can’t. He has to make sure nothing is wrong,  _ then  _ he can eat. 

He sets his food down and picks up his phone. His blood runs cold the moment he looks at the screen. He takes a breath and reads the text again. 

_ Thursday, November 7 _

_ I..I've been gone a  _ whole week?! 

He leans against the counter, his head reeling. How is that possible? What was he doing that whole time? Where  _ was  _ he? He looks at his phone again and starts looking through his notifications, fear coursing through his body. There are eight voicemails, all from Tim. The last one was sent this morning which grants him some relief, but not enough to banish the frightened knot forming in his gut. 

“ _ You have  _ eight  _ unheard messages,”  _ the voicemail chirps, “Thursday  _ at  _ 1:39 pm.” 

Brian feels nauseous as he listens to the voicemails from Thursday and Friday, anxiety building to a level he’s not sure he can handle. He wants to put the phone down and take a break, but he can’t will himself to do it.  

_ You left him,  _ a voice in the back of his mind whispers,  _ You made him worry about you.  _

He takes a breath and banishes those thoughts from his mind. He knows where thoughts like that lead, and he does  _ not  _ have time for that. He keeps listening. 

_ “ _ Saturday  _ at  _ 12:40 pm. 

_ “Hey, it’s me. Nothing is really going on right now. Mostly I’m calling you because I’m bored out of my mind. They’re still trying to get records from my doctor, but I guess he’s out of the office for a few days or whatever. It’s a really small clinic, so there’s hardly anyone there right now. No one in this place has their shit together, I guess. They’ve got me on some other seizure medication as a precaution, and I told them it wasn’t going to work because they already  _ tried  _ that kind when I was a kid and it didn’t do anything, but they insisted it wouldn’t hurt anything so whatever. Maybe I’ll get lucky. The police haven’t come back since they talked to me the other day. I realized that I could just tell them I don’t want to press charges and then they’d leave it alone, but it’s not like they’ve been around to tell. Anyway, I hope you’re alright. Call me when you can. *click*”  _

After that the voicemails taper off. One on Tuesday repeats pretty much the same thing. Still no progress on getting his medication. Still no word from the police. Brian frowns and feels a pang of mixed sorrow  and anger in his chest. Was no one taking care of Tim at all? Did literally everyone else abandon him? 

_ Just like everyone always fucking does. God, I can’t believe this. I’m so sorry, bud.  _

He listens to the last voicemail, sent just this morning. 

_ “You have  _ one  _ unheard message, sent  _ today  _ at  _ 9:36 am. 

_ “So, I do have a small update. The doctors are saying I should be good to go tomorrow, which feels like years away, but at this point I’m just glad this is going to be over. I’m feeling a lot better than I was since they took me off of the really serious pain meds and switched to the more basic ones. So far I’ve been ok without my medication. There were a few times I got scared, but nothing ever happened. Hopefully it stays that way. I’ll call you again tomorrow before I’m discharged, and hopefully...hopefully you’re back by then. If not...I guess I’ll just head back to your house and wait for you there. I don’t know where else to go, honestly.”  _

Tim pauses and sighs. 

_ “Please, just...let me know you’re ok, I…”  _

He stops and draws a ragged breath. There’s a moment of silence, and the line goes dead. 

_ Tomorrow. They’re releasing him tomorrow,  _ Brian thinks. As much as he wants to be happy, he realizes he’s just walked into a very dicey situation. The minute Tim leaves the hospital, he’ll be vulnerable. If Alex is going to try and kill them again, he’s had a whole week to plan everything out. No doubt that plan starts with Tim being released. Brian might have the element of surprise if he strikes before then, but that window is rapidly closing. 

_ I have to take care of him. I have to take care of him  _ now  _ before he gets the chance to do anything else.  _

He opens up a kitchen drawer and pulls out a knife. Useful, but he’d feel better if he had something with more range. He can’t rely entirely on surprise this time around, so he needs to be prepared for a good fight. He wraps the blade in a thin towel and puts it in his pocket before walking out of the kitchen to hunt for something else he can weaponize. His eyes land on books, furniture, dishes. Nothing useful. He goes upstairs and searches the rooms. Finally he finds something he thinks he can work with. He gets up on a chair in his bedroom and takes down the curtains over his window. He takes the curtains off the curtain rod and stands up. The metal bar feels weighty and solid in his hands. He gives it an experimental swing. It’ll do. 

As he heads back downstairs, mind and heart both racing, a thought occurs to him. He takes his phone out of his pocket and dials Tim’s number. For a moment he feels his heart throb in his throat as he waits for Tim to pick up. Mercifully the call goes straight to voicemail. 

“Hey Tim. Listen, I'm sorry about all this. I didn't mean to leave you hanging like this, but I...ran into some trouble. You already know about the police. I tried to tell them it wasn’t me who hurt you, but I think they were looking for someone to pin this on so they could move on. Taking me in was easier than finding Alex. Anyway, yeah I ran. After that...I don’t know. I...that thing, um, it came after me, and...I’m missing a whole week of memory. I don’t know where I was or what I was doing, and I didn’t have the camera with me so I’ll never know. But I’m fine. Kind of shaken up about it, but I promise I’m totally fine. I have your medication, by the way. It’s here at my house.” 

He pauses, tapping his fingers against the counter, and closes his eyes.

“So...I know Alex is still out there somewhere, and we’ve both been crazy lucky this past week that he hasn’t turned up yet. I don’t want to call you and tell you I’m fine and then scare you again, but...I’m going after him. He has to be dealt with before he disappears, assuming he hasn’t already, so...that’s what I’m going to do. I’m leaving right now for his house. After that, I’ll come back for you. Give me twenty-four hours, and whatever happens...I promise I’m going to be ok, and I promise I’ll be careful. Everything is going to be fine, man. I’ll see you soon.”

* * *

 

 

The sky is dark by the time the doctors finish their tests. Blood work, CAT scan. Tim doesn’t get a moment of peace, but he doesn’t complain. If the tests come back clean, he’ll finally be free of this place. He can finally start looking for Brian, and they can finally get back on track. 

As he thinks about all the tasks ahead of them, his head starts spinning. Whatever plan they had before has been killed and buried as far as he can tell, especially if Alex was telling the truth about Seth being gone. The tapes they were able to get last time are probably the last they’ll ever get, but at this point it doesn’t matter. Whether Alex is being controlled or not, the way ahead seems simple to Tim. They have to kill him. If Alex is gone, no one else gets hurt and the rest of them can go back to just coping. 

Back in his room, the nurse continues to fuss. Checking his IV lines again, asking if he’s comfortable, reassuring him with that false smile that he’ll be out of here soon enough. Tim barely responds, and instead tries not to be reminded of the nurses from his childhood. They all had the same smile, same upbeat voice, as they tried to wring even a drop of positivity from a decidedly gloomy situation. They knew those kids wouldn’t be leaving any time soon. They knew how tired and frustrated everyone was with that situation. Tim always wished they would drop the act just once and tell him the truth. 

When the nurse is gone, Tim’s eyes land on his cell phone sitting on his tray table. As he reaches for it, he prepares to be disappointed. When he sees the notification from his mailbox, his heart jumps in his chest. 

Brian’s voice is warm and organic, and as Tim listens to the voicemail, he feels the oppressive sterility of the hospital dissolving. Even so, Brian sounds tired. Distracted. As the message continues, Tim learns why. His relief is mixed with new apprehension that only grows as his friend explains his situation. When the line finally goes silent, Tim feels hollow. The white walls around him feel smaller than ever. The taste of metal floods his mouth, but he barely notices as panic crushes his chest. 

He sits forward and rests his face in his hands. He struggles to control his breathing as his heart flutters and squirms inside him. Finally, he’s able to slow his mind and draw in a breath that doesn’t catch in his throat. A line of color flashes across his vision, and immediately the panic returns. 

His head snaps upward. The lights around him are so bright, the setting sun outside his window searing. Another shape sparks and blurs through the room before disappearing. He notices the metallic taste now. His mouth feels cold. He tries to take a deep breath and fails as he begins to cough. His eyes land on the call button at his bedside, and between thoughts of panic and numb realization, he screams at himself to press it. 

His eyes catch a dark figure in the corner of the room. A figure he’d always thought was part of the aura. Just another hallucination. Another omen. 

His shaking fingers fumble with the cords and tubes beside him as his muscles begin to seize. For a moment he thinks he might make it. 

He doesn’t. 

A switch deep in his brain flips. 

 

It’s time to leave. 

A place like this is not safe. Has never been safe. It’s time to leave. 

He barely feels the prick in his skin as he pulls the IV out. It’s a small pain. A nuisance. Cold sweat gathers on his skin.  _ It’s time to leave.  _

He freezes as he stands, listening. Waiting. No voices inside the room. No voices outside the door. But beyond...beyond there are murmurs. People. He knows they will try to stop him. They always try to stop him. 

The air is cold. Ice against his skin. He feels as thin as the gown he’s wearing. He can’t escape like this, so soft and vulnerable. His eyes land on a plastic bag by the sink. He knows its contents will be warmer. 

His jeans are rough. His stomach aches as he pulls them on, but he doesn’t care. The pain is worse than pulling the IV out, but it is still just a nuisance. His shirt is gone - he knew it would be - but his jacket is there. It will protect him. It is sufficient. His hands shake as he pulls it on. 

He has to move fast. If they catch him, they will lock him in again. Their hands are rough. Their eyes are cold. He remembers their voices. He remembers their lies. 

_ “You can’t keep running off like this. It’s safer in here, Timothy, we promise.” _

Only lies. 

He approaches the door and turns the handle. He only opens it a crack. One eye watches the nurses as they pass by. The lights are dim now. The sun has gone down. The darkness gives him comfort, but the lights are still too bright. It will not hide him. 

The hall is empty. He slips outside. At first he walks. Then he runs. 

Some passing nurses are startled as he darts down the hall. One calls out, her voice concerned. He does not listen. She does not pursue. He skirts around the elevators and goes straight for the stairs. 

His footsteps are thunderous in the small space. He throws himself down each flight with increasing desperation. There are footsteps above him. Pursuers? Echos? He doesn’t slow down long enough to find out. He’s out of breath by the time he reaches the bottom. Still he does not slow. 

There are more people on the first floor. They seem startled as he flies past, but again no one moves to stop him. He keeps his head low. He feels their eyes boring into him. Watching him. Evaluating him. He stumbles through the winding corridors, his hands covering his face in a futile attempt to protect himself. Too exposed. Not safe. 

Where is he going? What is he looking for? 

Too exposed, not safe. 

He sees a red sign above him. “Emergency” it reads. He knows this sign. Remembers passing one like it. Beyond it is a way out.  He follows the trail through the halls, to the lobby, past the huddled people waiting to be treated, and out into the sweet evening air. 

Some of his anxiety dissolves, but not enough. He’s still too close. Still not safe. They will follow him anywhere he goes, and they will drag him back. The woods are home. The woods are thick and dark and good for hiding, but the woods are a long way off, and the woods here are not the ones he knows. 

He ducks through the parking lot, ready to disappear into the streets beyond. Something in the bushes catches his eye. It glares white in the moonlight. His curiosity gets the better of him. He goes to investigate. 

As he lifts it out of the bushes, he realizes what it is. A mask. He has seen these before. He has seen  _ this  _ mask before. Recently. Someone he knows had it. Someone who helped him. He banishes the memories. Right now the details do not matter. Right now he can use this. A mask is another face that is not your own. With a mask, the nurses and policemen will not recognize him. They will not take him away. 

He slips it over his head. The plastic becomes warm as he breathes. He feels a swell of confidence within him. Boldness. Resolve. Yes, this will protect him until he can find a hiding place. He thinks of his ally again. The one who helped him. Another memory nags him. His ally needs him. Why, he does not remember. 

He will find him. They will hide in the woods together. They will be safe. 

He runs off down the street.

* * *

 

 

Brian doesn’t have to think much as he treks through the night to Alex’s house. He’s visited it so many times, watched these exact trees pass by through his car’s windshield, jolted over the same potholes over and over again, that navigating there has become second nature to him. He tries to take advantage of those instincts so he can shut his brain down and stave off the memories that keep fighting to surface. He hates himself on and off for letting it happen, complicating his current mission, but he can’t stop himself completely from reminiscing. He decides it’s time to change tactics and turn his anger elsewhere. 

He starts thinking about Tim. About all the messages he left and how afraid he was. He thinks about Seth, who could be dead for all they know. Seth, who never hurt anyone his whole life, whose body could be off in the woods somewhere, waiting to be found. He thinks about every annoying character flaw Alex has ever had, from his serious lack of empathy to his tendency to rag on people’s favorite movies without thinking. He thinks about how if Alex had just trusted them for once in his goddamn life, all of this could have been avoided. The anger inside him is running good and hot by the time Alex’s house comes into view. 

The windows are dark. It throws Brian off for a moment and he hesitates in the shadow of a tree growing over the road. He searches for a car, but the driveway is hidden from this angle. He wonders if Alex isn’t home tonight, for whatever reason. He also wonders if Alex is waiting for him. He wants to believe the former so he can turn around and head home, but he knows he can’t leave without looking around. He has to be  _ sure.  _

He walks a wide circle around the house, ducking through shadows and patches of tall grass. He sees no one. Hears nothing. Alex’s car isn't in the driveway. He doesn't know how to feel about that which only serves to unsettle him more. He ventures closer, hefting the curtain rod in his hands. He peers in the windows, but even in the bright moonlight, he can't make out much. Finally he approaches the front door and turns the knob. It's unlocked. 

The house is silent, but Brian expected nothing less. He takes a deep breath and wraps both hands around the curtain rod. He holds it out in front of him as he walks into the foyer and into the living room. He's not prepared for what he sees. 

He doesn't notice him at first, but as his eyes track towards the kitchen, he notices a figure sitting against the wall. Brian raises the curtain rod immediately into attack position. The figure startles forward as he notices Brian’s presence and as he speaks, Brian feels as though he's been punched in the stomach. 

“Whoa, Brian, it's me! It's Seth!” 

His grip on his weapon wavers. 

“What? Wait, Seth, are you really…?” he stammers. 

Seth takes a few steps forward out of the darkness, and Brian’s hands fall to his sides. 

“Oh my God I thought you were dead,” he chokes, closing the distance between him and his friend and wrapping Seth up in a hug. Seth flinches. Brian releases him almost immediately. 

“Sorry, did I hurt you?” he asks. 

“Huh? No, no, I'm alright,” Seth murmurs. 

His eyes flit past Brian, scanning the room. When he does look at his friend, his gaze goes right through him. Brian takes a breath. 

“What the hell happened to you? We heard from Alex that you were gone,” he says, “I assumed he killed you.” 

“That's not really important right now,” Seth says, “I need to know what tapes you got from Alex.” 

“Like...recently? God, Seth, I don’t know. A lot happened after we got them. We haven’t had the chance to watch them.” 

“I mean over all. What was on the tapes you got from him?” 

“ _ All  _ of them?” 

“Yes, Brian, this is important.” 

Brian pauses, staring at Seth. 

“What’s  _ important  _ is that you’re not dead, Alex is still out there, and Tim is probably scared out his mind wondering where the hell I am! Seth, fuck the tapes, we need to get out of here.” 

“Alex moved out almost a week ago. He packed up and skipped town. He’s not a threat.” 

“Ok, fine, but we’re not discussing Alex’s tapes right this second. What are you even doing here if Alex is gone?” 

“I couldn’t find you or Tim, so I came here because I knew you’d show up eventually. I know how fixated you are on Alex, still.” 

“You say that like I have no reason to be.” 

“I’m not saying that.” 

“Then what are you saying?” 

“The reason Alex is acting the way he is is because of that monster. Brian, we have to do something about  _ that!”  _

Brian stops, and for a moment he feels like he’s talking to an entirely new person. Seth’s gaze is cold and hard, his shoulders squared and tense. As he speaks, he makes broad gestures with his hands, encroaching on Brian’s space as he tries to get his points across. He doesn’t back down for a second, even as Brian falls silent. 

“Ok,” Brian says, “Yeah, I see your point, and we’ll figure this out just...we can’t do anything about it tonight. I think we both need some sleep, and I still need to make sure Tim is alright. Do you have your car?” 

Seth breathes in and some of the tension in his shoulder dissipates. 

“Yeah. Where’s yours?” 

“The hospital.” 

“The hospital? What the hell is it doing there?” 

“Alex ambushed Tim in his apartment about a week ago. He...got hurt pretty bad.” 

“Alex tried to kill him.” 

Brian sighs. 

“Yeah. He did.” 

Seth doesn’t say anything more about it. 

“We’ll go pick your car up. You check on Tim, and meet me back at your place. You have a spare key?” 

“I should.” 

“Ok. Be careful.” 

Brian laughs. 

“Always, Seth. Always.” 


	13. Masked Man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At this point is it even worth apologizing for my shitty update schedule? If it makes you feel better, it hurts me just as much as it hurts you. I had to reread a bunch of parts just to figure out whether or not Brian knew Seth almost fucking died.

“What? No that can’t be right. Did you spell his name right? W-R-I-G-H-T.”

“I’m sorry, sir, I double-checked and this information is accurate. While he hasn’t been formally discharged, we believe he left. He was absent from his room at the last check-in and he hasn’t come back.” 

Brian can’t breathe. 

“When did he leave? How long has he been gone?” he asks.

“Last check-in was about three hours ago.” 

Three hours. Only three hours. In that time, Tim could have gone anywhere. Three hours. When did he send Tim that voicemail? It was...probably about three hours ago. He forces himself to take a deep breath and rakes his hand through his hair. 

“Ok. Thank you. I guess...What should I do if I find him?” 

“His records say he was supposed to be discharged tomorrow, so at this point I don’t think it would be worth your time to bring him back. Are you his next of kin?” 

“Well, they listed me as Tim’s emergency contact. He doesn’t really have any family.” 

“Alright. Then I would talk to his doctor about care in case you find him and he doesn’t come back. I can see if he’s available for a few minutes.” 

“Thank you, I appreciate it.” 

When the doctor finally shows up, their conversation isn’t long. He gives Brian two prescriptions to fill at the hospital pharmacy and instructions for Tim to keep his wound clean and dressed with fresh bandages. Any signs of infection, come back immediately. The stitches will have to be removed in a few weeks. Then he leaves, on to the next patient, and Brian is left alone again. He put the prescription forms in his pocket and walks back to his car, still waiting for him in the hospital parking lot. Seems no one had the motivation to move it. 

Brian gets in and closes the door. He takes a breath and leans back in his seat. His eyes start burning and he grinds his palms against his eyes. No, he’s not doing this now. There’s no reason to be upset. Tim’s obviously doing well enough to run off, and he hasn’t even been gone that long. Alex has left town so there’s no chance Tim could run into him. He’ll probably show up at Brian’s house again sooner rather than later. Hell he could be there now. So why does his chest hurt so much? Why does he want so badly to break down and cry? 

_ He went to look for me. What else could he have been doing? I shouldn’t have left him that message. Now he’s out there alone and hurt and probably freaking out and it’s my fault.  _

He leans forward, a few tears dripping onto his jeans and leaving dark circles where they land. He forces himself to breathe. 

_ Stop it. You’re spiraling again. This is stress talking. You’ve been running non-stop for days. When was the last time you slept? Breathe, Brian. You won’t find him like this.  _

He opens his phone and calls Tim’s number. Straight to voicemail. 

“Hey Tim, uh, I just got done talking to your doctor. They say you disappeared a few hours ago. Um...Alex isn’t in town anymore. He left, so...we’re safe for now. I’m going back home, so if you get this just...meet me there I guess. Stay safe,” he says. 

He puts his phone back in his pocket, ignoring the icy dread in his stomach. His eyes feel heavy. The last thing he should be doing is driving, but he has to. Then he can crash, and when he’s finally gotten some rest he can come up with a plan. 

He barely remembers the drive back to his house. Most of it’s spent on autopilot, lost in his own head. When he pulls into the driveway and sees his front door illuminated in his headlights, he finally lets himself relax. He’s home. Alex is gone. Seth is probably inside. Tim too, if he’s lucky. He’s still got food that probably hasn’t gone bad yet. He’s safe now. 

He shuts off his car and walks inside. None of the lights are on. Seth must have crashed somewhere. He looks into the living room and sees a motionless form wrapped up in a blanket on the couch. It’s too tall to be Tim. Seth then. He did say before he left Brian at the hospital that he was exhausted. Brian doesn’t blame him. As quietly as he can, he heads upstairs. 

The rooms upstairs are all empty. He feels a twinge in his chest. No Tim. 

_ Where is he? I need to go find him. It’s not that late yet, but it will be, and if he’s not here he could be all the way at Alex’s for all I know-.  _

He sinks onto his bed. No. He can’t. Not right now. Not even adrenaline could keep him awake at this point. His temples are throbbing. He  _ has  _ to sleep. 

He kicks his shoes off, but doesn’t bother changing or even getting under the blankets on his bed. He falls back against his mattress and closes his eyes. Releases a breath. Memories of the past few days play back in his head, clear at first, but as he grows more drowsy they warp and change. The nurses from the hospital are in the woods speaking gibberish sentences. Random words just strung together. Tim is trying to tell him something. They’re underwater. They’re back in the hospital. Tim is now Seth. Brian is now Alex. Everyone is there and no one is. Finally there’s nothing at all.

* * *

 

He’s not sure what time it is when he finally wakes up. Morning light floods his room with no curtains there to stop it, and the sun feels no qualms about striking his eyes directly. He sucks in a deep breath and rolls over. He opens his eyes. His door is open. Did he leave it like that? He doesn’t usually, but he can barely remember what happened last night. He closes his eyes again. He doesn’t want to move. Doesn’t want to think. His feet are freezing. 

He reaches towards the foot of his bed, trying to find the sheets, but there’s nothing there within reach. He sighs and opens his eyes. He sits up.

There’s someone there. 

His back hits the wall. He fumbles around on his nightstand for a weapon, unable to tear his eyes away. His lamp crashes to the floor. The figure seems startled. As he takes a few hurried steps backwards, stumbling over the loose clothes and other junk on the floor, Brian finally calms down enough to get a proper look at him. And he realizes, despite the blank white mask staring back at him, that he knows exactly who it is. 

“Wh-...Tim?!” 

Tim doesn’t say anything. He freezes. Watches. Brian swings his legs over the side of the bed and gets up. He takes a few steps forward. Tim tenses, but doesn’t move. 

“Tim, what the hell, how did you get in? What are you wearing that for?” Brian asks, “Are you ok?” 

He reaches towards his friend, but Tim shies away. He bumps into Brian’s dresser and nearly falls backwards. Brian moves to grab him and steady him. Tim doesn’t give him the chance. 

Tim rams his shoulder into Brian’s stomach, slamming him into the ground. As Brian’s back collides with the floor, pain shoots through his shoulders and for a moment he can’t breathe. He coughs and looks at Tim, now standing over him and poised to run, not sure what to do now that he has his assailant on the ground. 

“Tim, hey! It’s me!” Brian says, holding his hands out. 

Tim coils his hands into fists, but he doesn’t move, he takes a step back. Brian sits up, slowly reaching towards him. 

“Tim...Tim, it’s me,” he says, lowering his voice, “You’re ok. You’re safe.” 

Tim takes a few more steps back towards the window, still tense as a bow string. Brian’s hands shake as he takes another step forward. 

“You’re at my house. I’m not going to hurt you. No one is,” he continues, “Ok?” 

He hears footsteps on the stairs. He doesn’t turn around as someone else walks into the room. 

“Jesus Christ,” Seth says, “Is that Tim?” 

Tim turns towards Seth as he enters. He takes a half step forward. Brian doesn’t let him get any further. He lunges forward and wraps his arms around Tim’s shoulders. Tim immediately lashes out, trying to swing his fist at Brian, but with his limited range of motion he can’t quite connect. He yells in frustration, struggling and trying to hit at Brian. Seth’s eyes go wide and he rushes forward. 

“Tim, please, it’s me! It’s Brian!” Brian pleads. 

“What the hell is wrong with him?!” Seth asks. 

“I don’t know! He just...showed up in my room,” Brian grunts. 

Tim’s foot connects with his shin and he cries out in pain, but refuses to let go. He stumbles forward, wrestling Tim down onto the bed. Tim grabs at him, trying to push him off, but with Brian’s weight directly on top of him, there’s not much he can do. Brian grabs his wrists, fighting to hold him still. 

“Tim! Come on!” 

Seth reaches forward and pulls the mask off Tim’s face. Tim’s eyes are wide. Feral. His pupils seem to devour his irises. His skin is shiny with sweat, and his teeth are gritted in an angry snarl. His face is no longer swollen, but painful blue-green bruises surround his eye and speckle his jaw. He tries again to push Brian off of him, but his strength is waning. Brian lunges forward, pinning Tim’s wrists to the mattress, and finally,  _ finally _ , Tim is quiet. Struggling still, but not enough for it to matter. 

Brian’s heart won’t stop pounding. He knows how to handle Tim. He knows how to calm him down and bring him back to reality. He knows his body language, the signs he’s having a bad day. He knows that no matter what Tim throws at him, he can handle it, because even if he’s never been there he can at least empathize with the struggle. Feeling trapped in your own head. Out of control. Hopeless. Like no one gets you. He knows how to handle Tim. 

This isn’t Tim. 

“Tim please,” he breathes, “Listen to me. I’m not trying to hurt you. I’m your friend, Tim. Please just listen to me.” 

Tim stares back at him, chest heaving. He face starts to relax, but Brian can’t tell if he’s finally coming to his senses or not. He’s still wound as tight as a spring. Seth leans over and studies Tim for a moment. Tim’s eyes dart towards him, his expression less friendly. 

“What he like this when you brought him back from the hospital?” Seth asks. 

“He wasn’t at the hospital,” Brian says, finally catching his breath, “They said he escaped. I thought he came looking for me since I went to find Alex, but...I don’t know. I’ve never seen him like this before.” 

Seth frowns and takes a breath. Finally he releases a sigh. 

“Yeah, I don’t know,” he says, “I don’t even know what we should do with him, much less how he got like this.” 

“Uh, maybe give me a few minutes alone with him,” Brian says, “He doesn’t seem to trust you right now. Make sure you close the door.” 

Seth looks down at Tim - at the way his dark eyes are locked onto him and at the way his breathing is still heavy, his fury barely contained - and silently agrees. He nods and gets up. He shuts the door behind him with a soft click, and Brian and Tim are alone again. Brian looks down at his friend as Tim’s expression begins to soften. 

“Tim, I’m going to let you go, ok? But I will tackle you to the ground again if I have to,” he says. 

Slowly he releases Tim’s wrists and gets up off the bed. He keeps his hands up as he takes a step back. Tim sits up immediately, curling into a defensive position, but he doesn’t move otherwise. Brian lowers his hands. Now what? They stare at each other, both too scared to try anything else. After a few minutes, Brian sits down on the ground, still watching Tim. 

“See, you’re fine. You’re safe,” he says. 

Tim doesn’t seem entirely convinced, but he at least appears to understand. He glances around the room. 

“Bri-...Brian,” he says. 

The sound of his voice is startling. It’s stiff. Robotic. His inflections are off and he emphasizes the wrong syllable, but he’s speaking. That’s enough. 

“Yeah. Yeah that’s me,” Brian says. 

“ _ You _ are my ally,” Tim says, sounding a little surprised. 

“Yeah.”

“You are safe?” 

“Yeah we’re safe, man.”

Tim nods, satisfied. Brian sighs in relief. 

“You’re not going to tackle me again, are you?” he asks. 

Tim shakes his head. 

“Can you tell me what happened to you?” Brian asks, though a sinking feeling in his gut tells him he won’t get a clear answer right away. 

Tim ponders his question for a moment, brow furrowed. He shakes his head. 

“It was not safe,” he says. 

“Why? Why wasn’t it safe?” 

Tim frowns. He opens his mouth and closes it again, unable to find the words to describe his thought process. He shakes his head furiously. 

“Was not safe,” he mutters, mostly to himself. 

Brian just nods, not keen on pressing him further. 

“You hungry?” he asks. Tim doesn’t respond, which is just as well for Brian. The question was asked more out of politeness than genuine concern. Brian’s own stomach growls at him, voicing just how ravenous it is. He was numb to it before when he was being fueled by adrenaline and preoccupied with other thoughts, but now swallowing an entire cow whole seems like only a small step towards alleviating his hunger. Tim will be fine here for fifteen minutes. 

Brian stands and stretches. 

“Well, I’m going to go make food. I’ll bring you some up, ok? Don’t go anywhere,” he says. 

Tim doesn’t respond, but he watches Brian carefully as his friend walks out of the room and out of sight. 

Seth is standing in the kitchen, a glass of milk in one hand, the other held close to his torso. The white mask sits on the counter by his elbow, staring patiently up at the ceiling. He raises an eyebrow as Brian rounds the corner and opens the fridge. 

“Well? Did you learn anything?” he asks. 

“Only that he’s probably not going to attack me again, and that he left the hospital because it wasn’t safe,” Brian says, taking cheese and sliced turkey out and setting it on the counter. 

“Wasn’t safe how?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t say.” 

Brian takes a loaf of bread out of a cabinet and takes out four slices. He puts them directly on the counter, deciding crumbs on the counter is a problem for future-Brian, and peels open the turkey package. He takes out seven slices, six of which go on the two sandwiches and one which gets stuffed directly into his mouth. 

“And he knows who you are?” Seth continues. 

“I think so, though he’s still really confused.”

“What about this? Why the hell did he have this?” Seth asks, picking up the mask. 

Brian turns around and looks at the mask. For a moment he can’t place it. Then it clicks. 

“Oh. Huh. That’s mine,” he says. 

“It’s yours?” 

“Yeah, uh, it’s a prop from one of my theatre classes last semester that never made it out of my car. When Alex...kidnapped Tim, Tim was trying to psyche him out and protect me by acting like we had a third person working with us. When I went to get him back I figured I’d play along, so I put the mask on. I thought it was still in my car, but it must have fallen out when Tim and I got to the hospital. He must have picked it up,” Brian says. 

“Why?” 

“Fuck, Seth, I don’t know! I don’t know  _ anything  _ that’s going through his head right now! I’ve never seen him like this before, and it’s freaking me out!” 

“Ok, ok, geez. Let’s just…” 

Seth trails off and sighs. Even he doesn’t have a plan now. He didn’t think contingencies for “one of our allies goes feral and tries to punch us” would be necessary.  

“Well at least Alex is out of the picture for now,” he says, “He wouldn’t go through the effort of packing up his entire life if he wasn’t serious about leaving.” 

“Do you think he’ll come back later?” Brian asks, adding cheese to the sandwiches and turning back to the fridge for mayonnaise. 

“I don’t know. To figure out that, we need to know why he left before finishing you and Tim off.” 

Brian freezes. 

_ “He’s moving here once he’s done shooting Marble Hornets. Oh God, guys if he’s, like, going crazy or something, I don’t know what I’m going to do.” _

“Amy,” Brian murmurs, “Amy said he was moving to her town when he was done with Marble Hornets. That has to be where he went.” 

“Is she in danger now too?” 

“He had one chance to kill her, and as far as we know he didn’t take it. Unless something else happens, I think she’ll be safe.” 

“Something  _ else? _ ” 

Brian sighs, Alex’s angry voicemail running through his head again. Their conversation with Amy was months ago, but it feels like years. Stale anxiety wells up in his stomach as he wonders for the thousandth time what could have happened to her. 

_ “If you ever go near Amy again, I will kill you.”  _

At the very least she’s alive, and in the end that’s all he can ask for. 

“Before you showed up again we tried talking to Amy about Alex,” he says, “She gave us a tape she stole from Alex, and we told her what was going on. The next day I got a voicemail from Alex saying he knew what we did, and if we ever came anywhere near her again he’d kill us.” 

He shoves another slice of turkey into his mouth. Seth taps his fingers against his arms. 

“And that’s it? You don’t know what happened to her? How Alex found out?” 

“Nope. Just that she has to be alive, otherwise Alex wouldn’t have threatened us.” 

_ Not that it matters in the end. If he changes his mind, we won’t be able to do a damn thing to stop it. _

He sighs. 

“We should have just left her be,” he murmurs. 

Part of him hopes Seth will do something to reassure him. Tell him Amy would have found out anyway, one way or the other. Tell him they couldn’t have known Alex would find out so easily. It’s all bullshit, but it would be nice to hear it anyway. 

Seth doesn’t say anything. He falls silent and takes another sip from his half-empty glass of milk. Brian finishes the sandwiches and puts them on a plate. He’s halfway out of the kitchen when Seth speaks again. 

“So do we have a plan for Tim?” he asks. 

Brian turns around. 

“What do you mean?” 

“Well you said this has never happened to him before. What if he doesn’t come out of it? What’s the plan?” 

Brian narrows his eyes. He doesn’t like Seth’s tone. Doesn’t like how he’s staring him down with those cold eyes that are looking less and less like his own with every passing day. Doesn’t like the implication that Tim is a liability. A problem to simply be dealt with, rather than a human being in just as much deep shit as the rest of them. 

“Then we deal with it,” Brian says. 

Then he turns down the hall and goes back upstairs.

* * *

 

Tim stays curled up on the bed most of the day. He eats food and drinks water when Brian brings it, but he shrinks away from Brian’s touch and doesn’t let him get closer than necessary. Brian tries to coax a few words out of him, but he doesn’t speak again. Apparently, there’s nothing else for him to say. Brian talks to him anyway. 

“So Alex moved to...God why can I never remember the name of that town? He moved to the town Amy’s in. Your hometown. You know,” he says. He pauses and finishes renaming another one of the videos they ripped from Alex’s tapes. He knows the date isn’t exact, but this one at least feels close. 

“It’s a good thing you hate it there,” he continues, “because I doubt we’ll be going back as long as he’s around. I just wish we knew what happened to Amy.” 

He pauses and leans back in his desk chair. 

“I should probably just stop thinking about her…” he murmurs. 

He looks back at Tim. Tim watches him intently, a glint of understanding in his wild eyes. It’s not really a response, but it’s better than nothing. A shadow passes across the door as Seth pokes his head in. Tim’s eyes immediately snap towards the movement and he tenses, but he doesn’t glare at Seth the way he did before. 

“Do you have the tapes organized?” Seth asks.

“Yeah, just about,” Brian says, “Though I don’t know how helpful my labels are going to be.” 

He names the last video and takes his laptop over to Seth. 

“This is the tape Amy stole from Alex. This is the tape Tim had when he woke up in the hospital. Other than that, all of these were stolen from Alex’s house,” Brian says, pointing to different files in the folder he’s created. He hands off the laptop and walks back over to his desk. He takes a tape out of the drawer and hands that to Seth too. 

“This is the last tape we took from Alex. I still haven’t had a chance to watch it, but it’s probably not anything. Most of them aren’t.” 

Seth nods. 

“Ok, thanks,” he says. 

Then he turns and walks back downstairs. Brian leans on the doorframe and watches him go, his mouth setting into a soft frown. These days it feels like his default expression. Smiling has always come easily to him, but the past few months even neutral expressions have felt forced. 

He walks back into his room and sits back in his chair. He takes a deep breath and looks over at Tim again. Still motionless. Still watching him. 

“Tim, come on…” he murmurs. 

The slightest furrow forms in Tim’s brow, but he doesn’t say anything. 

“Come on, man,” Brian says, “Come back to me.”  

Every second of silence feels like a slap in the face. 

Brian looks out his window. The sun is going down. He doesn’t feel tired, but being unconscious is the only appealing activity he can think of. Nothing else feels worth his time. Not with a monster on the loose. Not with his life falling apart the way it is. 

He stands up and walks over to the bed. Tim’s eyes follow him. He sits down on the other side. Tim doesn’t move. 

“If I try to sleep, will you try to strangle me?” Brian asks. 

He looks down at the floor and starts peeling his socks off, not expecting an answer. 

“No.” 

He pauses and looks back at Tim. A soft, bitter laugh escapes him. 

“Alright, cool,” he says. 

He lays down and stares up at the ceiling as the sun sinks lower and lower in the sky. As the last rays of light fade, he finally dozes off. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well it took five billion years but the gang's all back together! Sort of. And I finally don't have to worry about anyone busting into the comments second like "are you ever going to explain why Brian just had a fucking mask on him for no reason?" Good things going on in your local MH fanfic, lol.


End file.
